


Blind Affection

by jilliancares



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blind Lance (Voltron), Eventual Smut, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, a scene where lance just kicks ass and gets the praise he deserves, because that's what WE deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-05 00:00:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12179049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jilliancares/pseuds/jilliancares
Summary: After Lance gets injured in battle he finds himself without his eyesight, a situation he never would've expected himself to get into. Half expecting to get kicked off the team, Lance is determined to train harder and keep the fact that he's upset about his loss of eyesight from his teammates. No harm ever comes from bottling everything up, right?(Wrong. Also Keith helps him train. Also Lance shows Keith proper skin care. Also Lance has a huge crush on Keith. Also maybe being blind's gonna help him get in Keith's pants [and heart].)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys!!! so i've already written about 20k of this fic and i'm thinking it's gonna be maybe a couple thousand words longer unless i get a sudden burst of inspiration of another plotline to add, but i decided to start posting it now bc i'm so excited about it! it should end up being about 4 or 5 chapters and i plan to upload them every couple of days so i have time to wrap it up! hope you enjoy!

It was dumb of Lance to take off his helmet.

It was just that so much was happening all at once and he didn’t stop to think about what taking it off could _mean_. They were in their lions—had been for much too long—and Lance’s arms were aching from all the crazy maneuvers he’d had to pull off, yanking levers this way and that, slamming buttons that he had to lean much too far to reach. He was starting to become sluggish, pulling levers with just a little bit less strength, hitting buttons just a little bit too slow.

“Lance! Watch out!” someone called over the com, and Lance had to hold back a groan as he shoved both levers forward, diving down. Still, something hit him and he went spinning, forcing him to stomp on pedals and pull on levers to stop it.

“Fuck!” he cursed.

“We can’t afford to start slacking,” Shiro reprimanded. Lance grit his teeth.

“I know, I just—my arms hurt.”

“Lance! Pay attention!” This one was Keith. Lance was annoyed, tired of everyone yelling at him, tired of his arms aching and his brain becoming foggy from fighting for what felt like _hours_. Zarkon’s fleet had caught up with them and they would’ve wormholed out of here forever ago if the castle hadn’t been going through a _reboot_.

It was stupid—who would’ve thought that castles needed to be turned off and on again, like a friggin’ iPhone? And yet here they were, stranded outside of it as it slowly turned back on, lights outside the castle just barely starting to glow again.

Sweat was dripping down Lance’s forehead, getting into his eyes and stinging something horrible. He couldn’t wipe it away with helmet obstructing him so he yanked it off, rubbing the saltwater from his eyes.

“Lance!” someone yelled, their voice faint now, coming from the helmet in his hands. He dropped it, reaching for the gears just in time to avoid the cruiser pelting towards him. But he didn’t move fast enough to escape the second one sneak attacking him from behind.

It was a suicide mission, apparently, and the cruiser crashed into his lion, sending him careening forward. Lance’s entire body jolted forward, the control panel before him coming up to meet his face. It slammed into him and he groaned, a throbbing ache starting up in his head.

He blinked open his eyes and was met with darkness—his lion must’ve gone out of commission. Groaning, Lance crawled along the floor, reaching out with his hands until he finally found his helmet—it’d rolled into a back corner. He shoved the thing on his head and leaned back against the wall behind him, breathing heavily.

“Yeah, so, something’s wrong with my lion,” Lance informed his team, currently yelling at each other through the coms about the battle.

“What’s wrong with it?” Shiro asked.

“Completely dark in here, can’t see a thing. I don’t know if it’s operational.”  
“Good news paladins!” Allura’s voice said, finally reconnecting with them from the castle. “The castle is up and running again—hurry back so we can wormhole!”

“Got it,” Shiro responded. “Someone scoop Lance and bring him back too.”

“On it,” Hunk’s voice said, and then Lance felt his lion moving, likely in Hunk’s clutches. Lance sighed and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. His head hurt like a bitch.

Hunk deposited him in his lion’s hangar and he sighed, staggering to his feet. Something must’ve been really wrong with Blue—her visual screens rarely went out unless something super bad had happened to her. This whole time she’d been radiating waves of concern.

“Don’t worry, Blue,” Lance said to her, staggering to his feet and wincing as his head pounded even more intensely. He groaned. “We’ll figure out what’s wrong with you—fix you right up.”

Blue’s waves of concern didn’t stop so Lance patted her control panel comfortingly, then shimmied a little further along, to where her mouth opening would be.

“Think you have it in you to let me out though?”

Blue leaned down then, her metal mouth opening with a groan. Lance blinked, looking around in surprise. It wasn’t just Blue that was dark—it was her hangar too. Was the hangar somehow connected with her, magically? Reacting to her? Or was the castle still kind of booting up, different sections of it not powered up all the way yet?

“Guys?” Lance said into his com, huffing as he eased his way down Blue’s ramp. His foot met ground before he’d expected it to and he stumbled forward, tripping and falling to his hands and knees. Blue purred at him, anxious. “Calm down girl, jeesh,” he muttered.

“What’s up, Lance?” said Pidge.

“I don’t know man, something’s up with my hangar too. I swear it’s pitch black in here—the castle must still be a little funky.”

“Oh no!” Allura answered. “It shouldn’t be doing that! Can someone go collect Lance? Bring a flashlight, maybe? We’ll need to get the lights in there working again if we want to take a look at his lion.”

“I’ll get him,” Keith sighed, and Lance rolled his currently unseeing eyes. He stood back up and made his way in the direction he thought the door was, his hands held out before him, braced for collision with wall.

“ _What_ are you doing?” Keith’s voice suddenly said, piercing the darkness. Lance blinked in surprise.

“Keith, buddy, am I glad to see you! Well, not _see_ , of course. It’s dark as fuck in here. We should install a couple windows or something.”

“What are you playing at?”

“What?”

“It’s not dark in here, Lance! And your lion looks fine! What are you lying for?”

Lance gaped in Keith’s direction, incredulous. “Ha ha,” he finally said, crossing his arms over his chest uneasily. “Very funny, glad you’re suddenly into humor. Seriously dude, can you turn on that flashlight?”

Keith was silent for a very, very long pause. And then: “Oh no.”

—

“What do you _mean_ , he might be blind?” Pidge was saying, somewhere to Lance’s left. They were all gathered in the common area, Keith having grabbed his arm and dragged him through the pitch black halls effortlessly. Just a few minutes prior Lance had deluded himself with the thought that Keith’s Galra genes let him see in the dark.

It was probably accurate to say Lance was in shock. He was hunched over himself, his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes staring at the floor. Or at least, they should’ve been. Instead it was just dark.

Lance wasn’t sure if he was breathing or not. Well, surely he must’ve been, but he just couldn’t feel it happening. He could hear everyone talking around him, hear their voices combining and arguing and bickering over his head and he just wanted to lay down. The easiest solution to this problem would be for everyone to stop pretending that everything was all right and turn on the lights.

“I need to go in a healing pod,” Lance muttered. He felt dizzy and he wasn’t even standing. He sunk even lower over himself with a groan.

“He might have a concussion,” Pidge pointed out. “He said he hit his head, didn’t he?”

“Why was your helmet off, anyway?” Keith suddenly barked. Lance turned away from him.

“Maybe the healing pod will fix him right up,” Hunk suggested. “I mean, it heals us all the time, right?”

“Well, yes, but…” Coran said uncertainly.

“Either way, he _does_  need to go in the pod,” Allura pointed out. “It can take away his concussion at the very least.”

Someone with gentle hands helped Lance to stand, helped to lead him towards the healing pod room, and Lance knew it was Hunk. Hunk had always been a gentle giant.

“I’m scared,” Lance admitted. His words came out garbled, his tongue feeling thick. The whole hitting his head hard enough to (possibly) blind himself was finally getting to him.

“It’s okay,” Hunk said. “It’ll all be okay, let’s just… let’s just get you there, all right?”

“All right.”

They were already there, apparently, though Lance had thought they still had a few more turns to go. Guess not.

Hunk helped him into the pod, and a few muffled beeps told him that Hunk was setting it up. And then the temperature was going down and it was pulling Lance down with it—before he knew it, he was asleep.

—

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Pidge’s voice said distantly.

“The concussion is most certainly gone,” Coran replied, equally as distant. “The rest, however…”

Lance groaned. He could feel the sleep stripping away from him, could feel himself shivering and the sudden need to get out of the healing pod. And then he remembered everything: hitting his head, the dark—endless and everywhere, surrounding him, dark, dark, _dark_ —

Lance gasped, ripping his eyes open, and they darted around uselessly, moving and moving and taking _absolutely nothing in_. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe and he couldn’t see. His chest was heaving, gulping oxygen that was doing nothing for him, possibly fogging up the glass in front of him, but he couldn’t be sure because he couldn’t _see_  it, he couldn’t see _anything_.

His eyes grew hot as they filled with tears but Lance held them back; he would _not_  cry. Crying would cement the fact that he was… that he was _blind_. He couldn’t let that be true, couldn’t let that be reality, and so he didn’t let the tears fall.

“Pidge?” Lance said uncertainly, his voice echoing loudly around himself. He couldn’t be sure that Pidge was even here right now. What if he’d dreamed her voice? Or what if she’d actually said it, but left since then?

A loud, mechanical sound whirred around Lance and he flinched, stepping back and bumping his shoulder against the side of the pod. He froze, took a deep breath, and felt out with a hand. The glass surrounding him was gone, and suddenly there was a hand in his. Lance felt his breath hitch in surprise.

“Don’t worry Lance, we’re here,” Pidge said softly, and then she was leading Lance forward. He stumbled over the lip of the cryopod, cursing as he fell forward, and hastily righted himself.

“Who’s we?” he whispered. He felt the need to whisper, felt like he had to be quiet, not knowing who was around him. It was kind of like school, like making himself the center of attention. He loved it when he initiated it, loved it when he joked in class and made everyone laugh, loved talking loudly and gesturing wildly not just for his friends but for the people around him. But it wasn’t so fun when he didn’t choose to be the center of attention, when he didn’t know who was watching. It wasn’t fun when someone cracked an egg over his head in the middle of the cafeteria and everyone laughed.

And now Lance didn’t know who was here, didn’t know who was around him.

“Everyone,” Pidge said. “We’re all here. For you. Right guys?”

“Right,” their voices chorused, and Lance whipped his head to the right, realizing they were all standing clustered over there. He didn’t say anything. Couldn’t think of anything to say. That was new.

“You hungry?” Hunk said, his voice overly bright. Lance blinked in his direction.

“I guess.”

Everyone was completely silent as they made their way to the kitchen. Hunk had taken over for Pidge, his hand resting in the middle of Lance’s back as he guided him.

“I made pancakes, Lance,” Hunk said as they walked, finally breaking the silence. “I know you asked me for them weeks ago but I finally found the last of the space ingredients last night! I’ve been making them all morning.”

“That’s awesome, buddy,” Lance said, forcing a smile onto his face. He may not be able to see it, or anyone else, but that didn’t mean they weren’t able see his expression. He’d have to force himself to be happy, or at least _look it_. He was like, the only one who could ever lighten up around here. He’d have to still be Lance, still be the happy guy, the moral support. It was all he was good at.

Even so, it was hard. His throat felt thick. All he wanted to do was sink against the wall and cry like a baby, but he didn’t even know where the nearest wall _was_. He wanted to cry and scream and rant about the loss of his eyesight, something that wasn’t supposed to just _happen_  to him! He couldn’t survive without being able to see, he just knew it! And he certainly couldn’t defend the universe! Soon enough he’d be kicked off the team and forgotten, maybe abandoned on some alien planet to try and adapt to his new lifestyle.

“I got whipped cream down a couple days ago, but I was leaving it for a surprise. You’ll have to tell me how it tastes.”

“Sounds great,” Lance agreed.

Hunk sat him down at the table that they all usually sat at. He heard the sounds of chairs being pulled out as everyone sat down, heard Hunk setting dishes on the table, heard silverware clinking against plates as he handed them out.

“Alright everybody, dig in!” Hunk proclaimed. Lance sat still, his chest suddenly heavy, as he heard movement: people helping themselves to pancakes and forks scraping against plates. He swallowed thickly. He didn’t even know where the pancakes _were_.

He inched one hand forward, trying to subtly find the pancakes. He didn’t want to ask for help. It was ridiculous, right? But he felt embarrassed. He _shouldn’t_  need help with something as simple as serving himself breakfast, and yet…

“Here.” Lance flinched as Keith leaned over him for a moment before the smell of hot pancakes wafted up from below him. He could feel the heat of them on his chin. “Whipped cream?” Keith grunted. Lance nodded, stiffly, and a moment later Keith cleared his throat. “It’s all on your plate now, just…”

“Right,” Lance whispered. His fork was next to his plate, which was good, and he used it as best as he could to eat his breakfast. As best as he could meant about a quarter of a pancake and hands sticky with syrup from having to reach forward and rip whatever he was trying to cut with the side of his fork, but it didn’t matter anyway. He wasn’t really hungry.

“Thanks for the pancakes, Hunk,” Lance said, standing up. “They were delicious. I’m really tired though, so I’m gonna…”

“Wait, we’ll walk you to your room.” This was Shiro. Lance just shook his head.

“No, I—I got it. I know where it is.”

“Lance…”

“I need to do this,” Lance said firmly. There was a moment of silence. Allura cleared her throat.

“As long as you think you’ll be fine, Lance,” she said, and Lance nodded, shoving out of the chair and taking a careful step back from the table.

“I will be,” he promised. And then he turned around and inched back the way he’d come in, his hands outstretched in front of him. He reached the wall sooner than he would’ve expected, sucking in a breath when he jammed the fingers of his left hand into it, but he took it in stride and swung through the doorway on the right side of the wall he’d hit. He kept his hand along the wall the entire time he walked.

Lance knew where his room was. He’d picked it out his first night here—it wasn’t his fault Keith also knew the best placement of rooms and had chosen the one directly across from him. In this situation alone, they’d been in agreement.

But now… well, Lance had never had to get there in the dark before. He still felt like he should be able to open his eyes and _see_. The fact that he couldn’t see—would _never see again_  hadn’t dared to sink in. No one had brought it up at all since he’d come out of the cryopod and he didn’t know what that meant. Did they just not want to bring attention to it? Were they already in the midsts of replacing him and trying to keep their distance by avoiding the topic?

It didn’t matter. It didn’t change the fact that Lance was really quite useless without his eyes. His bedroom should be right around here, one of the doors on the left, and yet… There were a lot of doors. And they all felt the same. Hell, they all _looked_  the same. Lance had always just known which one was his, somehow.

His savior came in the form of Keith. Again.

“Hey,” his voice said, somewhere down the hallway behind Lance, surprising him and making him jump. Lance turned around, hopefully glaring at wherever Keith was standing.

“What do you want, mullet?” he demanded, but the heat wasn’t really there. And he’d never see that mullet again, anyway. He swallowed.

“I just felt ready for a nap too,” Keith answered. “Walk together?”

Lance wasn’t stupid. He knew this wasn’t a coincidence. But he also knew that he really wasn’t going to be finding his room anytime soon, so he shrugged. “If you want.”  
Keith caught up to him and they walked side by side. He didn’t guide Lance like Hunk and Pidge did, just walked steadily by his side while Lance trailed his hand along the wall. And then he stopped.

“We’re here,” he said softly.

Lance nodded, not even having the energy to shout, “I knew that!” His entire being felt weighed down.

“Right,” he said. Lance turned around, stepping forward after the doors swished open loudly.

“Lance—I just, do you want… do you want to, um, talk?”

“Nah, I need a nap,” Lance said without turning around. And then the doors closed behind him, and he sank down against them, his face crumpling. Still, no tears slipped out. He would be strong. He wouldn’t cry.

People lost their eyesight every day, right? If they could get through it, so could Lance. He didn’t need to be a crybaby about it. And obviously no one else on the crew thought it was a big deal either, seeing as they hadn’t felt the need to bring it up.

No, he would stay strong and tough it out. He would practice harder, maybe even train with Keith. He’d get so good that they would have to be stupid to kick him off the team. He would prove that he could still be good, still be worth something. And he would pretend to be happy while doing it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was thinking of making this chapter a longer chunk but i liked where the break was in this one 0.0 
> 
> i might upload another chapter tomorrow though! we shall see, stay tuned!!

Lance didn’t think he’d ever get used to being blind. Every morning he woke up in a panic, on the verge of screaming. He only held himself back because Keith would be able to hear him from across the hall.

But things had maybe gotten a little better. Allura had given him a kind of cane-stick-thing. He used it as he walked, anyway, sliding it into walls before his face could meet them first. And he’d gone back to acting the way he should have, after that first day. It’d been a rough start but he was a great actor. He joked and did finger guns and made fun of Keith and acted _normal_. He thought he was doing great. He also didn’t see any of the worried looks his friends kept giving each other.

They wanted to give him a break, wanted him to rest, to get acclimated to his condition. They’d said this when he had shown up for practice on his first full day of being blind, determined to work hard and maintain his spot on the team. He’d just shaken his head.

“What? No I’m totally already acclimated. I roll with the punches, you know?”

“Lance, it’s okay to not be… okay,” Allura had tried to tell him, but he’d just sent the biggest grin he could manage in what he’d hoped was her direction.

“I’m always okay for you, baby,” he’d said, and that had been that. It’d been something else entirely when he’d realized how utterly useless he really was—he couldn’t do the one thing he’d thought he was actually good at: shooting. He couldn’t look through the scope, couldn’t put a Galra’s head in the middle of the crosshairs and blow their brains out. He couldn’t ever pull that trigger again without the possibility of it being one of his friends he was blowing up.

And so he’d sat along the side lines as they’d practiced that day, defending each other from lasers and fighting the gladiator together. The only thing Lance had been any good at was the stupid invisible maze, seeing as listening to someone else’s directions was apparently all he was good for anymore. He was also way better at bonding with those stupid headbands they still sometimes used, seeing as he focused as hard as he could on forming Voltron, afraid his team would otherwise see in his mind how weak and pathetic he really was. Despite not being able to train in any way that actually mattered, Lance had still insisted on going to practice every day—this way no one could assume he was slacking.

Convincing his team he wasn’t slacking wasn’t enough, though. He had to _actually_  not slack, had to put forth effort and somehow prove that he was worth keeping around even if he couldn’t see anymore.

He couldn't afford to let himself fall behind. His teammates wouldn't accommodate for his—he had to face it—disability forever. That was why after the third day of sitting on the sidelines and listening to everyone practicing without him, thoroughly resenting himself and the stupidity that'd allowed him to go blind in the first place, he decided to take action.

Lance pretended to leave the training deck along with everyone else. After saying goodbye to Keith outside their rooms, he waited for the sound of Keith’s bedroom door closing behind him to turn and double back the way he’d come.

He had to walk along the walls in the training deck to find the basket that contained the wooden sticks they sometimes used to spar. By the time he actually found it (lower to the ground than he’d thought it was) he was already feeling useless and annoyed, but he forced himself to the center of the room anyway. He cleared his throat.

"Begin training simulation," he said aloud. "Level one."

He'd managed to work up to much higher levels by competing with Keith. Keith didn't really know about the competition, per se, but Lance had been slowly gaining on his tail with no intention of telling him anytime soon (it would be much more fun to surpass him and then taunt him with the fact he was better). Now, he was sure he wouldn't be able to handle those higher levels. Every maneuver he'd learned, every method of blocking and dodging and attacking, had relied on his sight.

"Beginning training sequence," the room said. There came the loud _thud_  of the gladiator landing on the mat a little ways from him, and then it was running. Lance could hear it, its footsteps coming towards him, closer and closer.

Lance ducked, holding his stick out in hopes of tripping it and—

He groaned as something heavy collided with his stomach, sending him skidding across the floor. The gladiator was still coming and Lance forced himself back to his feet, his sparring stick held in both hands defensively.

"Bring it," he growled, crouching a bit. He swung the stick at what he was sure was the right moment, likely to send the gladiator flying. Apparently it'd dodged, though, and he groaned as the gladiator's much heavier sparring stick struck his arm and then leg in quick succession.

Growling with anger, Lance swung his stick with full force, again and again, striking out in every direction in hopes of hitting the stupid robot. It was almost like it was _learning_ , taking quieter steps and giving itself away less easily.

"Where _are_  you?" Lance roared, still swinging away, panting with the effort. The gladiator answered by smacking him in the back with its weapon, sending Lance flying and face-planting on the floor.

The more it got him, the angrier Lance got, and the more erratic his attacks became. He hadn't managed to land a single hit on the gladiator, meanwhile it'd sent him to the floor again and again, bruises forming all over his body from everywhere its weapon had made contact.

Lance even managed to lose track of where he was in the room. He didn't think to question whether he was no longer in the center of it until he was sprinting after the gladiator, only to be tricked and end up running face first into a wall and crying out in anger as much as pain.

"FUCK YOU!" he screamed, stumbling away from the wall with one hand pressed against his nose, now feeling tender. In a fit of rage, he threw his stick as hard as he could in a random direction. A dull clang met his ears and he laughed, bending over his knees and cackling because _really_? He'd been chasing this stupid fucking machine for like, an _hour_ , and _that's_  how he finally hit it?

"Would you like to continue the simulation?" the room prompted a panting, on the verge of tears Lance. He still hadn't cried in the days since he’d injured himself, had still managed to hold onto his sanity—part of him was sure that if he let himself cry he’d end up crying himself to death. He opened his mouth to say _"No!"_  more vehemently than he'd ever said anything else in his life, but he didn't get a chance.

"Yes," said Keith's voice, and Lance flinched, gasping in surprise. He straightened up, blinking rapidly to disperse the beginnings of a tidal wave of tears.

"How long have you been here?" he demanded, his face growing hot as he thought about how ridiculous he must've looked—the stupid blind boy chasing after a machine an Altean child could beat, unable to land a single hit.

"Long enough," Keith answered, and Lance groaned.

"I used to be good at this," Lance said suddenly, unprompted. "Now I can't even hit it."

There was a pause, and for a moment Lance wondered if Keith had walked away without him noticing. "I admire you," Keith answered.

" _What_?"

"I admire the fact that you're trying to fight _blind_ ," Keith said. "I mean, I would be moping around and feeling useless but you're just trying to improve."

Lance shrugged. (Hopefully Keith was actually looking at him to see it). "If I can't do anything I'll get kicked off the team," he said. And swallowed. "I don't want to be abandoned."

Keith made some weird sound that Lance couldn’t really decipher before shouting, ”we wouldn't abandon you!" Lance felt his eyes widen as he heard Keith’s feet stomping aggressively towards him—he sounded mad. "Or kick you off the team, for that matter! Have you really been thinking that?" Lance shrugged again. "We're not just your team, Lance. We're your friends. We wouldn't do that."

 _Friends_ , Lance thought. Why hadn't he stopped to think of it that way? He felt stupid, though that wasn't anything new. But how had he managed to let his fear blind him this way? (Pun intended.)

Hunk wouldn’t ever let him be abandoned. He’d probably quit Voltron himself before letting Allura drop him off on some planet alone. And Shiro was much too responsible and empathetic to allow something like that to happen, anyway. And Pidge would probably punch Lance in the face, blind or not, for daring to think that his team cared to little for him in the first place.

"I still want to fight," Lance finally managed, shoving his suddenly overwhelming thoughts aside. Sometimes he couldn’t help it when his mind went all crazy and dramatic—it was just nice to have someone around to talk some sense back into him.

Keith answered by shoving the wooden stick back into his hands. "And we'll help you."

It wasn't something Lance would've ever expected. Keith spent an entire hour with him ( _voluntarily_ ), helping him to fight that gladiator. He started by telling him where it was at all times, what it was doing. By the end of the hour, Lance still hadn't managed to hit it, but he'd gotten knocked down a lot less, and he'd gotten better at figuring out what it was going to do and how to get away from it. The trick to figuring out where it was was being quiet enough to hear it, something that Keith helped him to figure out as well.

For the first time since losing his eyesight, Lance felt hopeful.

—

It was ridiculous, the way it happened, the way Lance finally broke down. He'd thought he'd been doing so well. Sure, he still woke up confused, for a few moments every morning absolutely convinced there'd been a power outage (or that it was simply a nightmare, the darkness all around him). He still got so angry at not being able to scoop a few measly space peas onto his spoon that his hands shook, making it even harder. But despite this, despite the anger and frustration and general dark cloud that seemed to emanate from his very skin, following him everywhere, he'd thought he'd had it all under control. He’d thought he'd be able to get through this, to maybe become some kind of blind fighting legend like you would find in a movie without blubbering like a baby along the way.

He'd thought, at the very _least_ , that if he ended up crying over this it'd be because he’d fallen in love with some hot alien babe and realized he'd never be able to see her hot alien face.

Instead, it was because of a shoe.

He'd been walking down the hallway to go to his room after a disappointing dinner (he'd taken to skipping certain meals entirely, the actual eating them part being so difficult and tedious) and feeling pretty good about himself. It'd started unconsciously, but for the past few days he'd been counting everywhere he went, counting his steps, breaths, doors.

It'd starting as a kind of way to calm himself, but then he'd realize it was actually really useful. There were thirteen doors along the wall before he reached his bedroom, the fourteenth door. It was 576 steps to get to the training room from his room, and from there 322 to get to the dining room (assuming he was walking at the same pace). The gladiator (on setting one) took three quick steps whenever it decided to try to swing its sword at Lance’s face—Lance had taken to ducking. (He still hadn't managed to beat the damned thing, though).

So yeah, he felt pretty happy right about then. He only had about twenty more steps until he reached the his room, where he would then go through his nightly skin routine. He'd been in a funk for the past week and had been avoiding doing it—what was the point when he couldn’t even see his own face?—but he’d finally come to his senses and realized it would be just as calming as it'd always been, just as enjoyable. Plus, just because he couldn't see how good he looked didn't mean other people shouldn't be able to.

His good mood was spoiled, however, when he tripped over a random object in the middle of the hallway. He went flying forward, his cane clattering somewhere away from him, his knee banging hard against the floor. And just like that, everything finally hit him.

The fact that he should've been able to see the thing he’d tripped on, the fact that he couldn't see _anything_ , that it was _dark_  and he'd always hated the dark and that he was so fucking hungry all the time now and unable to fucking _eat_. It all caught up to him, caught him in a flood wave, and just like that he was curling around his knees right there in the middle of the hallway and sobbing.

Right then, more than ever, he just wished he was back home, back on earth. He wanted to crawl into his mother's arms and let her hold him and rock him, let her whisper sweet nothings into his ears about how it would all be okay even though it very obviously wouldn't because he was _blind_.

 _Todo estará bien, mi amor_ , she would say. _Everything will be okay, my love._

Great, hiccuping sobs shook his frame as tears squeezed between his closed eyes—at least when they were closed the darkness seemed normal. He realized then, pathetically, that he'd lost count. He couldn't even get up and step into his room to cry in private because just like that he'd gotten himself _lost_. Just by losing count he was effectively nowhere, his room anywhere from two to a thousand steps away from him.

"Lance?"

That was all it took for Lance to shut the fuck up, for him to gasp and scrub the sleeve of his jacket against his face while he stood up.

"Yeah?" he said, cursing the waver in his voice. He didn't knew who he was talking to, had been sobbing too loudly to actually recognize their voice, but he forced a smile onto his face. "I was just laughing," he added, angling a thumb over his shoulder. "Hysterically. I do that sometimes."

"I'm over here." Lance felt his face _flame_  as he realized he facing the wrong direction entirely. He didn't know how that'd happened, the voice maybe echoing weird around the hall or just getting scrambled in his brain amongst the sobs, but that was all it took for his face to crumple again. He hugged his middle and hunched over himself as he sniffed, hot tears trailing down his face and, presumably, landing somewhere on the floor. This was all made worse by the fact that it was Keith witnessing this.

Lance could hear Keith walking towards him though he did nothing to avoid whatever was about to happen. Maybe Keith would punch him for being such a baby. It was pathetic, Lance breaking down in front of him days after he'd been all proud of him for being strong and continuing to fight and shit.

It was understandable how surprised Lance was when, instead of decking him in the face, Keith tentatively put a hand on the small of his back.

“C’mon,” he said, leading Lance just a little ways down the hall and to his room. Lance was trying to stop the waterworks, sniffling and wiping his face and feeling generally embarrassed.

“I don’t know how that shoe got out there,” Keith said almost absently. Lance ignored him and walked to his bed (nine steps) and collapsed onto it. Maybe he could suffocate himself in his pillow.

There was a moment of silence. Lance knew Keith was still there, probably watching him shake on his bed with left over sobs, because he hadn’t heard the door open and close.

“Are you okay?” Keith asked. Obviously, Lance wasn’t. But this was the time when he should pretend he was, jump up and claim he hadn’t gotten enough sleep the night before and shoo Keith away. Instead of doing any of that, he just stayed silent. He felt weak and stupid—holding in all his tears and anger had left him feeling worse than the actual battle that’d made him blind had.

“You know, Lance…” Keith said suddenly, speaking fast enough that his words sounded jumbled. “You can leave the eyesight… to Pidge.”

Lance laid there. “You’re really bad at this.”

With a sigh, Keith shuffled closer, his footsteps a dead give away, and sat (probably awkwardly) on the edge of Lance’s bed. “Do you… Can I do anything?”

Lance’s mouth betrayed him. It was just that the pressure of everything built up left him feeling like a wrung out rag and now he just needed some support, probably. His first choice would’ve been his mom, obviously, but his second choice… Well, Keith had already seen him in this state, right? It couldn’t get any worse than this. “Just… hug me?” Lance whispered, managing to sit up and look pathetic in Keith’s direction, hopefully garnering his sympathy.

He kind of expected Keith to refuse. A flat out no or perhaps awkwardly stuttered excuse as to why he couldn’t. Instead, tentative arms encircled Lance’s torso, and Lance sniffed loudly and leaned forward, burying his face in the juncture of Keith’s neck and shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Lance said, even as they hugged. _I’m sorry for being weak and pathetic. I’m sorry for needing a hug. I’m sorry for being blind._

“Don’t be,” Keith answered. HIs hand had started stroking over Lance’s back, up and down.

“I didn’t want to cry,” Lance admitted, for some reason. “I didn’t want to be weak.”

Keith’s hand stopped it’s motion. “You haven’t cried?” he said, incredulous. “You _lost_ your _eyesight_  and you didn’t let yourself cry?”

“I thought it’d be better if I didn’t.”

“You know that like, crying happens for a reason, right? Your brain produces too much of an emotion and releases it through your tear ducts—it’s science. You’ve just been letting all those extra emotions keep circulating through your head.”

Lance was silent. Was that true? He’d never really been all that good at science. Or math. Or like, learning things.

“Everything’ll be okay, Lance,” Keith said, squeezing him tight for a moment before pushing him away, his hands now secured on Lance’s arms. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Lance agreed wearily. And then Keith got off his bed and crossed the room.

By the time he was gone, Lance had scooted back against his bed and leaned against the wall, a pillow hugged to his chest. He pressed his face into it, trying to calm himself down. For some reason, his heart was beating a bit faster than normal—he felt flustered.

“Everything’ll be okay,” Lance said to himself, voice muffled in his pillow. He tried to actually believe it.


	3. Chapter 3

“Lance,” Hunk said, moments after the door opened with a _swoosh_.

“What’s up?” Lance answered. He was laying in his bed, fully clothed and on top of the sheets.

“You missed breakfast,” Hunk said. “And practice.”

“And now you’re missing lunch,” Pidge piped in. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“I ate while you guys were practicing,” Lance lied. “Didn’t feel like going today, sorry.”

“See, we thought you’d say that,” Pidge said. “So we had Coran sit in the kitchen to see if you’d show up.” Lance felt his mouth morph into a frown.

“Creepy,” he finally answered.

“You need to eat, Lance,” Hunk said seriously.

“I’m not hungry right now,” Lance said. “Might be coming down with something.”

His friends decided not to let this lie slide and kidnapped him. Hunk slung Lance over his shoulder, Lance kicking and screaming all the while, and carried him to the kitchen. Lance was plopped down in a chair at the counter.

“What’s with the kidnapping?” Keith’s said from somewhere on the other side of the room.

“Lance hasn’t been eating,” Pidge answered, sounding weirdly chipper. Probably because she’d gotten to witness Lance being kidnapped.

“What? Why not?”

“Not hungry,” Lance tried to answer.

“I think it’s depression,” Hunk said, talking over him. Lance groaned, putting his head into his arms on the table.

“I’m not depressed,” he argued.

“Then why aren’t you eating?” Keith demanded. Great, now he cared about this too. Thanks a lot, Hunk.

“It’s too hard,” Lance muttered.

“What?”

“I _said_ , it’s _too hard_.” Lance sat up, glaring in one direction and hoping that everyone in the room could take his expression and apply it to themselves. “I can’t see my food! I can’t get it on my fork or spoon! It’s _embarrassing_!” This outburst made the room silent. Lance sat there, his cheeks now pink, and he stood up. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“Oh no you don’t,” Hunk said quickly, shoving him right back down. “I’m making you a sandwich.”

“What?”

“I’m making you a sandwich,” Hunk repeated. “You don’t need to see it to eat it.” It was… surprisingly simple. Lance hadn’t even thought to ask for someone to make him a sandwich. (He hadn’t really thought to ask anyone for anything, seeing as he’d been so determined to prove that he wasn’t helpless). And here Hunk was, not even waiting for Lance to reach out for help. He was marching into his room and kidnapping him in order to give it to him.

Lance was feeling much less grouchy after he had a full meal in his stomach. He ended up apologizing to his friends, both for being so difficult and for worrying them. He’d barely managed to take a step out of the room before he was being apprehended by Keith.

“Lance,” Keith said.

“Keith,” Lance replied. Keith cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Um, I wanted to show you something.”

“Okay,” Lance said. “Dunno if I’ll see it though.” Keith laughed (actually _laughed_!) and prodded Lance in a direction, falling into step beside him.

“You’re joking again,” he commented, the sound of a smile still on his lips.

“I’m always joking.”

“Yeah but… they haven’t been the same, recently.”

“I always thought that you hated my jokes,” Lance said lightly. Keith grabbed his arm and turned him as they continued down a different hallway.

“I like your jokes,” Keith disagreed. “You’re funny.”

Lance felt himself smile. “Thanks.”

He felt less grateful, however, when he realized where they were going.

“No,” he said, digging his heels into the ground as Keith tried to push him inside. “No, Keith. No way.”

“Come on!” Keith insisted, giving his shoulders another shove. Lance stayed put.

“She misses you, you know,” Keith added. “Worried, too. You’d know if you’d gone to see her.”

“And you have?”

“Yeah,” Keith said, without bothering to offer an explanation. The rest of the team had gone on flying drills since Lance had gone blind, of course they had. But they hadn’t been able to form Voltron—not without him, obviously. But he just hadn’t been able to force himself to go to see Blue. He’d have to go inside her, feel all of her emotions, and know that he wouldn’t be able to fly her ever again. Not properly, anyway. Maybe he could form Voltron if he really tried, could sit anxiously in his lion, doing whatever his teammates told him to do, but it wouldn’t be the same.

“I can’t,” Lance whispered. His eyes were darting around like they always did when he got anxious, despite the fact that they were worthless now.

“Remember that day when we were trying to form Voltron? For the second time, I mean,” Keith said. Lance nodded. “Coran told us to bond with our lions, to see through their eyes. Maybe… maybe you can still do that now.”

It was sad, that this was what finally convinced Lance to go. Not for his lion, who was apparently worried and missing him, but for selfish reasons. Either way, it worked. He grabbed the zip-line and swung down, Keith’s feet pounding loudly on the slanted flooring somewhere beneath Lance.

Together they made it to the hangar, where Blue was presumably sitting before them unless she’d upped and run away.

“Hey girl,” Lance said sheepishly. Just like that, Blue was moving forward. Her giant feet clanging on the metal floor. The air whooshed around him as she ducked, her mouth groaning open for him to enter. “Missed you too,” Lance laughed. “Come on,” he said to Keith, taking an unsteady step forward. He shuffled his feet until he found the bottom of the ramp, which he started up.

“You want me to come with you?” Keith asked, sounding surprised.

“‘Course,” Lance answered. “Might not find the thrusters without you.”

And so Keith followed him, the two of them making their way into Blue. Lance settled into the pilot’s seat, feeling stiff and uncomfortable and very, very blind.

Blue was purring, excited to have him back with her. Underneath her pleasure there was underlying anxiety, worry for her paladin.

“I’m okay, girl,” Lance promised. “Can you take us out?” Blue obeyed him, getting to her feet and shooting from the hangar, out into the open space surrounding the castle. Lance still couldn’t see a thing, and Keith was standing somewhere behind him, probably with his arms crossed, looking sullen. Lance could see him so well in his minds eye that for a moment it was like he wasn’t even blind.

“You’ll have to bond with her more,” Keith instructed. “Shiro’s seen through his lion’s eyes, I’m sure you can do it with Blue.” Lance nodded and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. _Help me out here,_  he thought, his hands sweaty on the thrusters before him. _I’ll try harder, fight better,_  he promised. _I won’t ever take off my helmet again._  Something like laughter echoed in Lance’s mind, more primal and thunderous than normal laughter, and then— _space_.

Not the way he would’ve seen it with his own eyes. It was more like _knowing_  where everything was, where _he_ was, than actually seeing, but _still_! Mouth hanging open, Lance pushed down on the pedal and spun his lion, gasping when he “saw” the castle. It was hard to explain, but… it wasn’t like getting his sight back. It was like a sixth sense, one he’d never known he had before, had opened up.

“Keith,” he whispered, voice thick with emotion, body frozen with excitement. Blue was feeding off his feelings, until it felt like he was sitting in a cloud of happiness. He shot off towards the planet they were currently parked by, zooming around it with glee. “It’s working Keith!” he said, and then he actually started to bounce in his seat, whooping and cheering as he pulled off maneuvers.

“I knew you could do it,” Keith said. Lance froze. When Keith had spoken, he’d more than heard it. He’d almost seen it in the air, around his head. Vibrations of red—and then… there was Keith again, arms still crossed, except now he had a smile on his face. And he was standing closer to Lance than Lance had thought, _right_  behind the pilot’s seat actually, and—

Lance gasped. Was Blue letting him “see” _inside her_  too?

“What? What is it?” Keith demanded.

“Nothing,” Lance said, a smile on his face. It was relieving, actually, to kind of know he was there like that. “I just… I can’t believe it. I can fight! I can form Voltron!”

Keith let him humor himself for a little while longer before he suggested they go back. It was disorienting when Lance stepped out of Blue, the world suddenly harsh and dark again. But this time he knew it wasn’t gone for good. It was waiting for him, as was Blue, and the rest of his teammates. They were all waiting for him, letting him take his time to adjust, to learn to be good again.

They’d been putting all hand-to-hand missions on hold, or doing ones where they’d be able to manage without the fifth member of Voltron, but Lance knew he couldn’t slack like this forever. He’d have to hurry up and make himself useful again. It just wasn’t the same when he wasn’t out there fighting with them.

—

Lance stood still, panting, slightly crouched over and straining his ears beyond belief. He could barely hear anything other than the sound of himself breathing, but trying to quiet himself was nearly impossible, given how exhausted he was.

Keith was stood somewhere along one of the walls (presumably—he could’ve snuck away, but Lance doubted he did, seeing as he probably enjoyed seeing Lance get his ass whooped) and the gladiator was somewhere near him, standing silently in wait.

And then it moved.

There was a quiet, barely-there whir of its metallic joints moving, something Lance most certainly wouldn’t have heard if he weren’t listening for it, if he’d still had use of his eyes. And just like that he was spinning, raising his sparring stick in the air and taking a thunderous step forward to swing it with all his might.

He jolted in surprise when he felt it connect with something, when he heard the loud clang of wood on metal and the subsequent sound of the gladiator flying backward and scraping along the mat. Silence.

“Did I…?” Lance managed, before he was interrupted.

“Training level one complete. Begin level two?”

“OH MY GOD!” Lance cheered, quickly accompanied by the sound of Keith laughing. They were talking over each other, giggling and shouting and, for a moment, questioning if that had really just happened. Lance didn’t really know what he was doing, walking steadily towards the sound of Keith’s voice, until he was there and throwing himself into his arms.

Keith hugged him back as Lance laughed breathlessly into his shoulder. When they finally stepped apart, Lance’s stomach felt full of butterflies, the smile on his face twice as big. If he could see, he wondered if they’d be staring into each other’s eyes right now, smiling as big as could be. Instead, he cleared his throat awkwardly and stepped away from Keith, reaching up to shove a hand into the back of his hair.

“Begin level two?” the room prompted again.

“Nah,” Lance said. “It’s time for a celebration.”

Hunk made them cake that night, at Lance’s request, and Lance finally revealed to the group the secret practice he and Keith had been doing.

“You’ve been fighting the gladiator?” Allura said incredulously. Lance shrugged nonchalantly.

“It’s no big deal,” he sighed dramatically, flashing a grin. “Of course, none of you could ever do it, so.”

“How long did it take?” Pidge asked, her Questioning Voice on. Lance could imagine her with a pencil and notepad in hand, her glasses sliding to the end of her nose.

“A couple weeks,” Keith answered. Lance huffed, putting his chin in his hand.

“That’s awesome,” Shiro commented, and Lance felt himself brighten again at the praise, sitting up straight.

“You’re kind of like the ancient blind Alteans!” Coran added. “Probably not as good though—they were trained daily by King Gregory the Infirm!”

“Oh, I’ll be as good as them,” Lance promised, shooting a pair of finger guns in the direction of Coran’s voice. He overshot, though, and knocked over a glass of water, spilling it all over the table in front of him and onto his lap.

Just like that, his mood was ruined. Lance felt his face go red as he scrambled for napkins, having no idea where they were, of course. He ended up putting his hand in Hunk’s cake before deciding to just call it quits, shoving away from the table and escaping from the room with muttered apologies.

It was crazy, how quickly his mood changed these days. Even the littlest things could tip him over the edge, make the realities of the fact he was blind so real all over again. People spilled cups of water all the time—heck, Pidge had knocked one over at dinner the previous night, likely because she’d been gesturing too exuberantly. So why was it that when Lance did the same his throat tightened, his stomach clenched? Why did every little thing feel a thousand times worse now that he was blind?

Lance stopped when his hand met the fourteenth door. Except he was stupid, apparently, because he’d left in such a hurry he hadn’t bothered to extend his cane, instead just trailing his hand along the wall and leaving it bunched up in his hand. He realized this when he suddenly fumbled it, hearing it clatter to the floor and groaning.

He got onto his hands and knees and felt around for his cane until he finally found it, at which point he straightened up and stood in front of his door. It opened with a swish.

His jeans were soaked and sticking to his thighs, as was the bottom of his shirt, so he wasted no time in stripping them off and leaving them on the floor. He then crossed the room and crawled into his bed, pulling the covers around himself.

Honestly, the hardest part about being blind was probably the fact that it was so hard to occupy himself. He couldn’t read, couldn’t watch weird Altean tv, couldn’t stargaze. All he could do was hope someone was around for him to talk to, but during moments like this, when he just wanted to be alone, the only thing he could really do was think. Or sleep.

With a sigh, Lance pressed his face into his pillow.

And frowned.

His pillow smelled… different. Not in a bad way or anything, just in a way that Lance could actually notice there was a smell. Did his pillow usually smell like anything?

Maybe someone had washed his sheets for him or something. Although this wasn’t really a clean laundry smell. More… distinct. Still good, but not like soap. More like… more like…

The door swished open loudly.

“What are you doing in my bed?”

 _Keith_.

Lance froze, his sightless eyes widening in surprise as he finally realized that he _wasn’t in his room_. He must’ve gotten mixed up when he’d dropped his cane, must’ve gotten a bit turned around and somehow faced the wrong side of the hallway and entered a room that wasn’t his. He sat up slowly, feeling the covers drop from around his shoulders and settle into his lap.

“I’m in your room?” he finally settled on saying.

“Um. Yes?”

“Ugh,” Lance groaned, plopping back down on the bed in annoyance. “This sucks.”

“What?”

“Being blind.”

“Oh.”

Lance sighed. “Yeah.” Keith still sucked at this. With a huff, Lance threw the covers off himself and stood up. “I’m gonna go find Hunk.”

“For what?”

“To comfort me properly,” Lance said. He took about five steps before he tripped over a mess on the floor—his mess. Stiff with embarrassment, Lance pointed at the ground and snapped, “And clean this mess up!” before storming out of the room in search of Hunk.

It took him a while to find Hunk. Mainly because he hadn’t been down to Hunk’s room since the accident and therefore didn’t know how many steps it would take, much less which door it would. He ended up just standing in about the middle of what he thought was the right hallway and calling Hunks name loudly for a couple minutes.

“Lance?” Hunk finally said, sounding surprised. “What’re you doing? And why aren’t you wearing any clothes?”

“I am wearing clothes,” Lance protested. He snapped the waistband of his underwear. “And I need, like, an hour long hug.”

With that, Hunk was providing Lance with an oversized shirt (“Cuddling naked with you is a little bit too gay for me.” “Suit yourself.”) and they were flopping onto his bed for a much-needed cuddle sesh. Hunk had always been great at just comforting people in general. Lance couldn’t count the amount of times he’d gone running to Hunk over bad grades or mean girls or cute-and-probably-straight-boys back at the garrison. He’d spent many a night clinging to Hunk in his bed and spilling his heart out—it was honestly astonishing that he hadn’t done this sooner.

It was stupid, but he just hadn’t wanted to seem weak. Keith had made him feel strong, strangely, with all the training he’d helped him to do. But making mistakes and doing anything to remind himself of the fact he was blind always reminded him how weak he truly was. He could barely handle himself anymore—it was ridiculous. And he said so: he told Hunk all about how he’d been feeling recently, his fear of getting kicked off the team and needing to train, how useless he’d felt, how angry he was at the world (or maybe universe would be a better word there). He even brought up the weird, probably going-to-turn-out-painful feelings he’d had for Keith recently. What, with the butterflies and fluttering heart, with Keith helping him practice everyday and Lance ending up (accidentally) in his bed (and liking it), it was kind of hard to ignore. He had a crush on Keith—and Lance’s crushes never turned out well.

Hunk let him spill it all, rubbing his back all the while. He told him that he’d never be kicked off the team and that he wasn’t useless, that it was okay to be angry. He even told him that it was okay that he had a crush on Keith.

“Plus, you can’t even be sure how long this crush’ll last,” Hunk said with a shrug, disrupting Lance’s face, which was currently resting on his shoulder. “I mean your feelings come and go like crazy. The second a cute girl catches your eye you’ll be done for.”

“Except that they can’t catch my eye anymore,” Lance muttered.

“Ear, then,” Hunk amended. Lance snorted, sitting up with a sigh.

“I wonder what Keith’s lips taste like.”

“Sounds like it’s time for you to go to bed,” Hunk said, grabbing his shoulders and helping Lance to his feet. Lance sighed.

“I miss looking at him,” he admitted. “I’ll never see his stupid mullet again.”

“Past-Lance would’ve seen that as a bright side to this whole thing.”

“Past-Lance didn’t know that nothing is bright when you’re blind,” Lance answered, letting himself be guided through the door. “Thanks for listening to me,” he said, leaning into Hunk for one last hug before turning to go.

“Want me to walk you back to your room?” Hunk offered.

“Nah, I got it,” Lance said, striding off down the hallway.

“You sure?” Hunk called after him. “Because you’re going the wrong way.”

With a groan, Lance turned around and allowed himself to be led back to his room. It was 471 steps.

—

Lance’s crush was not getting any better. As days passed, turning into weeks, it became alarmingly apparent that his feelings weren’t as fleeting as they usually were. He’d always been able to see a cute person, be convinced he was in love, and forget about them in a matter of days. But for once, his attention was properly stolen, concentrated on Keith at like, all hours of the day. It was annoying.

“Lance,” Pidge said, annoyed. A loud snapping sound suggested she was clicking her fingers in front of his face. “Pay attention.”

“Huh?”

“You _said_  you were going to describe what it was like seeing through your lion,” she said. “Remember?”

Lance groaned, throwing himself backward on the couch. “I can’t explain it,” he decided, turning his face into a cushion with a huff. He didn’t want to think about his lion (although he had spent many hours just chilling with her, flying around space and seeing with her mind. He suspected she liked the company as well), he just wanted to think about Keith. Keith, with his pleasant smell that Lance honestly inhaled desperately whenever he was close enough, with his soft voice, a lot less prone to yelling at him now that he was blind, actually. Keith, with his for some reason unyielding patience with helping Lance fight the gladiator (he was close to beating level two, he just knew it). Keith, who Lance wanted to be spending more time with but couldn’t think of any excuses as to why and so he suffered instead.

“Lance, can’t you just _try_  to focus?” Pidge whined.

“It’s not like seeing,” Lance finally relented. “It’s completely different from everything. It’s like I just know where everything is, and kind of what it looks like. Maybe heat signatures or something.”

“Really?” Pidge said breathlessly, sounding so curious that Lance almost feared she’d go and blind herself to experience the same as him.

“Not that cool though,” Lance added hastily, fearful for her safety. He then stood up, gesturing over his shoulder. “Anyway, fun chat and all, but I’ve totally gotta go, um…”

“Ugh, just go,” Pidge said, and Lance grinned at her before fumbling his cane into his hand and making his way around the couch.

As he walked, his thoughts, as they always did lately, drifted back to Keith. For a moment, he almost thought he’d daydreamed about Keith so hard that he’d managed to conjure his voice.

“Hey, Lance,” he called, and Lance turned to the left, trying to figure out where exactly he was. He’d lost track of how many steps he’d taken, thinking about when Keith had grabbed his wrist the other day in practice, showing him how to swing his stick better.

“Hey,” Lance responded, taking a step into wherever he was. “Where am I again?”

“Kitchen.”

“Right, right,” Lance said, nodding. “Knew that. I was just quizzing you.”

“Mhmm.”

Lance made his way towards the counter, figuring now was as good of an excuse to force Keith to spend time with him as any. Plus, everyone probably knew he craved company even more than he’d used to, seeing as he didn’t really have any better means of entertaining himself. So it wasn’t _that_  suspicious that he was choosing to spend free-time with Keith.

He slid into the chair across from Keith, pursing his lips awkwardly. “Whatchya eatin’?”

“Goo,” Keith sighed. Lance frowned. It was always goo when Hunk wasn’t up to making something delish.

“Boo,” Lance said. And then: “Goo. Boo goo.” _Oh God, I hate myself._

Keith didn’t answer. Maybe he’d nodded, or something, but if he did Lance didn’t know. So.

Lance wanted to smash his head into the table and blind himself further.

He sighed, putting one elbow on the table and resting his head in his chin. He stared forlornly in Keith’s direction—without the actual staring part, of course. He wished he could just _look_  at Keith. Like, he’d always been pleasing to the eye, even when he and Lance had been bickering all the time.

Not to mention he looked amazing when he fought. Lance had spied on him spending time in the training room many times previously, obviously only to see what he was up against. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been able to admire Keith while doing so, the way he moved, the way his muscles bunched over skin. And oh God, when he finally got hot enough to pull his hair into a bun…

“I miss your face,” Lance said aloud, for some reason. Probably because he had no filter and his own brain was out to get him.

“What?” Keith spluttered.

Immediately, Lance felt his face go red. He hoped it didn’t look at red as it felt and tried to shrug casually. “I mean, I feel like we’re good enough friends for me to say that,” he said. “Like, obviously you’ve always been hot.”

“ _What_?”

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t know!” Lance scoffed. “Guys like you _think_  that’s modest but it’s actually just annoying.”

“I’m not—what’re you—” Keith cut himself off to clear his throat, and then said, in a higher pitch than usual, “You know Hunk’s in here, right?”

Lance’s mouth dropped open. “Since _when_?”

“Just walked in about a minute ago, buddy,” Hunk said suddenly, patting his shoulder. “You probably didn’t hear me because you were talking about how Keith is hot.”

“He _is_ ,” Lance responding immediately, unthinkingly, because he ranted to Hunk often enough now that it felt normal, and also because he’d forgotten Keith was in the room. He remembered pretty quickly when Keith started spluttering again, however.

“Alright well I forgot I promised to tell Pidge about what it’s like to see through my lion so! Bye!” Lance called. He then walked away as quickly as he could, retreating to his room in half the number of steps it usually took him. He stormed into the room and collapsed onto the floor in a fit of embarrassment, banging his fists against the floor and groaning loudly for good measure.

He was still lying prone on the floor when the doors slid open sometime later.

“Come in,” Lance said useless, the person having already taken two steps into the room, the doors sliding shut behind them.

“Dude!” It was Hunk. “You couldn’t see it—I mean, obviously—but Keith was blushing _so hard_  earlier!” he roared. Lance immediately jumped to his feet and slapped his hand over Hunk’s mouth (after first having slapped it over Hunk’s ear, and then eyes).

“ _Shh_!" Lance hissed. And then, “Really? Do you think he likes me? Do you think he’s gay?”

“Maybe!”

“Was it like, a ‘someone totally just confessed to thinking I’m hot’ kind of blush? Or like, an ‘I’m gay and this guy thinks I’m hot’, kind of blush?”

“I don’t know!”

“Ugh! Hunk!” Lance whined. “You have eyes! Use them!”

“I’ve never been good at noticing little things like that!” Hunk whispered yelled, aware that Keith was probably in the room across the hall.

“Eyesight is wasted on you,” Lance groaned, before throwing himself at his friend. “Woe is me! How will I ever face Keith again?”

“I don’t know why you randomly decided to bring it up like that in the first place,” Hunk said, which was not very comforting at all.

“I didn’t,” Lance said. “It was like my mouth decided that it didn’t need my brain’s permission to say things.”

“Rough.”

“Totally.” Lance separated himself from Hunk, taking exactly the amount of steps he needed to get to his bed. He knew his bedroom better than probably any other place on the castle-ship—although the training room was a close second, by now. Lance was able to easily navigate his room and bathroom, knowing where things were on counters and how to walk to avoid jamming his thigh into the corner of his bed. It was nice, feeling like he had some control in this small area.

“I’m going to lay here and contemplate what this means for my future,” Lance said, before crawling into his bed and pulling a pillow over his face.

“Completely understandable. Night Lance!”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's some solo action in this chapter which is,, where some of that mature rating comes in so !! be ready for that

After Lance’s accidental blurtation of thinking Keith was hot, they both decided to simply ignore that he’d ever said it.

When he’d finally woken up after a night of fitful sleep, Lance had strongly debated for much too long whether he should actually go to practice or just avoid Keith for the next eternity. Thankfully, he had ended up deciding to go and Keith had said nothing of it, both of them acting perfectly normal.

Except for when Keith had clapped him on the shoulder when they were done practicing, his hand kind of… lingering. Unless Lance had imagined it, which, to be honest, he probably had.

Anyway, it’d been a couple days since then and they’d both gone through the routine as normally as possible. They practiced together, and Lance occasionally joined in with the whole team (which sometimes resulted in someone, say, Shiro, getting smacked with a stick when Lance thought they were a drone—but hey, he was getting better), and they ate meals and formed Voltron for practice. Everything was… normal.

Plus, Lance had made the best discovery ever, the other day. He didn’t know how he hadn’t thought of it before—probably too depressed to even think of it—but he’d found the best solution to his as of late perpetual boredom.

He didn’t have to just lay in his bed and let his imagination run wild, didn’t have to seek out his friends for company or turn on some ancient Altean music just for some noise. No, he’d found something that was much, much more entertaining.

He gasped as he ran his hand over himself, his thumb running lightly over the sensitive tip of his cock. His clothes were abandoned somewhere on the floor, which would probably be a problem whenever he decided to stand. The covers were bunched somewhere to the right of him, his left hand toying with his nipple as his right hand continued to stroke himself.

His hair was sweaty and sticking to his forehead but Lance didn’t have time to care. He was too busy bucking into his own hand, letting out tiny gasps now.

Honestly, it was as surprising to him as it was to his intruder when the door slid open—he thought he’d locked it.

“Oh my God,” said Keith, followed by the sound of the door immediately shutting as Keith, presumably, escaped.

“Fuck!” Lance groaned, and with that, he was coming, twitching with the aftermath. Immediately after, embarrassment flushed through his body, climbing up his chest.

He managed to stumble out of bed and into the bathroom, fumbling for something to clean himself off (and hoping to god there was no mess on his bed, because now he realized he wouldn’t be able to clean it if there was) before he stood there, wondering what his next step would be.

Keith had walked into his room and seen him masturbating. The next, most logical step, was for Lance to eject himself into space to avoid ever having to see Keith, or anyone, again.

Still, a small part of Lance was curious as to why Keith had even decided to come into his room in the first place. They’d been following their schedule pretty strictly the last few days, a schedule which didn’t involve barging into Lance’s room in the middle of the afternoon, thank you very much. And, well, he should probably like… apologize, or something. Or at least clear the air.

Hating his life very much, Lance moved about his room and gathered his clothes, pulling them on with a heavy heart. The five strides it took to cross the hall morphed into like, ten tiny shuffles, before he was standing in front of Keith’s door, wishing for death. It slid open loudly, and Lance waited there for a minute.

“Keith?” he finally said, when no obvious greeting was forthcoming. “You in here?”

“Yep,” Keith said stiffly. Lance stepped into the room, suddenly aware of the fact that his hair was sticking to his forehead with sweat. Maybe he should’ve waited a bit longer before confronting Keith.

“Listen,” Lance said, feeling his cheeks heat up as he remembered Keith barging into his room. Lance had always been a confident guy, he knew there was nothing shameful about his body, and yet it still felt weird that Keith had gotten to see it when he couldn’t. “Um, I just wanted to like…” he cleared his throat, finishing with a shrug. “Sorry.”

“Oh, yeah. Well it’s, um—not a problem.”

“Awesome. Cool, yeah, awesome. Cool.”

“Yep,” Keith answered. And then, after clearing his throat, he added, “Sorry for making you… stop.”

“Huh?”

“I mean you came over like, right after. Sorry for killing the vibe.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, I mean—well, you didn’t. I was just—done. Right after.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I mean, getting walked in on has always been kind of… I mean like, you know, the risk of it all — it’s kind of…”

“ _Oh_. I get it. Glad I could—help. Forget I said that.”

“Will do. Um. Bye.” Lance spun around and left so quickly that he walked into the doorframe instead of actually through the door. He fell backward and groaned, rubbing his now sore face.

“Shit, Lance! Are you okay?” Keith asked. Lance could hear him getting out of his bed.

“I’m fine!” Lance insisted, before hopping to his feet and feeling his way out the door. He crossed the hallway in a heartbeat and disappeared into his room, his heart located somewhere in his throat. It was only once he was back in the safety of his own bed, drowning in embarrassment, that he realized he’d never found out why Keith had come into his room in the first place.

—

"End simulation," Keith said, as Lance was knocked flat on his back for the fifth time in ten minutes. He groaned, hefting himself up slightly with a wince.

"This level two feels more like a level three," he complained. He jerked in surprise as Keith grabbed his arm, pulling him up to his feet. He hadn't realized Keith was so close.

"You're distracted," Keith said. "You're usually better at dodging."

"I think the gladiator’s learning."

"Lance."

“It knows I can’t see.”

“ _Lance_.”

"I didn't get much sleep last night, okay?" he lied. The truth was, he just had a lot on his mind. Namely, Keith. One moment he'd be listening for the gladiator, hearing it clank around as it ran, and then Keith would cough or something and all of Lance's attention would be on him. And then he'd be landing on his ass, having just gotten punched in the stomach by an angry robot.

"How come?"

Lance shrugged. "Just thinking, and stuff. I'm gonna go shower," he said, before gathering his cane, propped against the wall near the door, and navigating towards the training showers.

"Me too," Keith said, his footsteps echoing behind Lance.

"Oh. Really?"

"Yeah. Sweaty work, you know. Keeping the drone from killing you when you get knocked down."

“Hey!” Lance protested, laughing as he and Keith made their way into the communal showers. He hadn’t ever used them back when he could see so he already wasn’t feeling very confident about where he was going. He knew where it was though. Still, it was strange, not having an idea of what the place he was in looked like. The same kind of strange that he felt after waking up, having dreamt in vivid color with people and faces only to wake up to darkness. He realized that one day he’d end up going somewhere where he had no idea what it looked like at all, the only mental map being the one he could make by walking everywhere.

He pushed that thought aside, its very presence uncomfortable. He wouldn’t have to deal with that for now, at least. Not while he was in the castle-ship, his second home.

“Where are you going?” Keith asked, breaking through the thoughts Lance had managed to distract himself with. He realized that he’d just been trailing idly after Keith, expecting to be led to a shower.

“Oh. I don’t know,” Lance answered. He stepped away from Keith, trying to figure out how he was going to find a shower. He wouldn’t mind doing it on his own—he could just find a wall and follow it, waiting until he inevitably bumped into a shower, but it’d be weird to do that with Keith here. Resigning himself to just ask for help, Lance cleared his throat uncomfortably and said, “Where’re the showers again?”

“Oh! Sorry,” Keith said immediately. Lance jumped when Keith’s fingers curled around his elbow, suddenly leading him a little ways across the room. His fingers were hot against Lance’s skin.

“Shampoo’s here,” Keith said, and then he was grabbing Lance’s hand and pulling his arm out until he touched a bottle along the wall. “Conditioner. Body wash.” He directed Lance to all the supplies, before stepping past him momentarily. He back was to Lance’s stomach, Lance could _smell his hair_  (oddly fruity?), and then the sound of the water was starting.

“No face wash?” Lance finally managed to say around around his tongue, which had very strangely swelled up to like, four times its size. Was he always so aware of the placement of his own tongue? Was his tongue _ever_  comfortable?

“That’s what body wash is for.”

Lance gasped, his sightless eyes widening in pure shock. “No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “No it is _not_.”

“It’s all just soap,” Keith said. In his mind’s eye, Lance could see him shrugging, looking totally uncaring that he used _body wash_  on his _face_. What kind of fucking _heathen_  did that?!

“Someone needs to help you,” Lance said seriously. “Your poor, poor _skin_.”

“Just get in the shower,” Keith grunted, shoving Lance forward a step. Water hit his hand and Lance pulled it back instinctively, somehow only just then realizing that he was already in the shower stall. He hadn’t even felt a curtain or anything.

“Thanks Keith,” Lance managed to say around his pride. Keith grunted in acknowledgement, and then he was stepping back, presumably out of the stall and into another one. Lance heard a separate shower-head start up and started stripping out of his clothes, leaving them two steps to the right of him and three steps back. He navigated back to the shower with his hands out, jerking a bit when his hands first collided with the stream of water.

He immediately stepped under it, his face turned upward for a moment—he would just wait to wash his face until he got back to his room, obviously. He would never stoop so low as to use body wash on the sensitive skin of his face.

It was while Lance was balancing on one foot to wash the other, his arm spread out and searching for something to lean against, that he realized something was wrong. He slowly straightened, spreading his arms out in both directions and leaning from one side to the other.

“Keith?” Lance called uncertainly.

“What? You okay? You didn’t get shampoo in your eye, did you?”

“What?”

“I mean, I guess that couldn’t really do any more damage,” he said thoughtfully, and Lance shook his head, bewildered.

“No, I just—are there curtains in here?”

“What?”

“You know, normally plastic? Hang from the ceiling? _Privacy_?”

“This is a communal bathroom, Lance.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s the same bathroom we used that time when we all had that space gunk on us. Remember? Pidge decoded it to help the Olkari. I mean, we entered from a different door, but it’s the same room.”

“I don’t remember,” Lance said with a shrug.

“There aren’t any curtains, Lance,” Kieth finally concluded. This resulted in Lance standing there for a moment, his eyebrows furrowed, before the realization truly hit him.

“You can _see me_?” he exclaimed, turning to face Keith’s general direction, his mouth gaping.

“I mean, if I was _looking_  I could see you,” Keith scoffed. There was a pause, and then he added, “Dude! Stop facing me. It’s creepy.”

“Wha— _I’m blind_!” Lance exclaimed, waving his hand rapidly in front of his face to prove it. “No eyesight, _tío_!” He took a distinctive step forward, pointing at Keith. However, this resulted in him stomping on a patch of wet, slippery floor and screaming as he fell forward, his face about to be marred by the floor.

Luckily, his descent into pain and the ugliness of a broken nose were halted by a warm, wet body.

“Shit,” Lance managed, his arms having automatically wrapped around Keith’s torso when he’d hit him, his face pressed into—what? His neck? “Sorry.”

“N-not a problem,” Keith said, quickly helping him back to his feet. His hands then directed Lance all the way back to his shower—Lance yelped as he was suddenly under the water-flow. He reached up and shoved his wet hair out of his eyes, blinking water out of his eyelashes.

“Don’t fall again,” Keith instructed. Added to the instructions was the bizarre touch of his hand, momentarily white-hot on the side of Lance’s hip, before it was gone, retreating with Keith’s footsteps. Lance felt his entire body go red.

Now aware that, if Keith so chose, he was completely on display to be looked at, Lance found himself standing just a little bit straighter, oddly conscious of his body and wishing he could look down at himself and see how he looked. Strangely enough—or perhaps not so strangely, considering the massive crush he’d managed to develop on Keith—he didn’t mind the thought of him looking at him. He almost _wanted_  it to happen, if it would make Keith decide he was gay and in love with Lance.

Keith finished his shower first, but apparently he’d decided to wait for Lance, as by the time Lance was dried off and wrapped in a robe Keith cleared his throat.

“Ready?”

Surprised by Keith’s presence, Lance definitely didn’t scream. “You waited for me?”

“Of course. Plus, you didn’t know your way around in here…”

Lance just nodded, keeping quiet. He didn’t mention how his memory and general knowledge of the placement of things was getting almost scarily good. He found himself occasionally forgetting to count as he walked down a hall and still turning the corner at the exact right step anyway, only noticing after he’d done it. He could navigate perfectly around the dining table, could slide into his seat now without bumping anything. He’d learned where Hunk usually arranged things on the table and could actually serve himself.

Much like all of that, after having already walked around in the room, Lance was feeling pretty confident about the placement of things. Apparently it was a giant communal shower, as Keith had said, so there were probably shower-heads all along the walls, rows of soaps on the shelves below them. The door was on the wall adjacent to the showers, closer to the opposite side of the room.

Still, Lance appreciated that Keith had stayed with him. Together they walked the rest of the way to their rooms, Lance’s cane tapping quietly against the wall as they walked, though he depended on it much less now than he had at first.

“Well,” Keith said, when they both stopped in front of their rooms. “Goodnight.”

“Night,” Lance quickly agreed, saluting him with two fingers even if he wasn’t looking, before disappearing into his room.


	5. Chapter 5

It wasn’t goodnight. Lance spent about half and hour in his room before he ended up crossing the hall and knocking on Keith’s door.

“Come in!” Keith called. The door obediently slid open, and Lance took a step forward to stand in the doorway.

“Lance. What’s up?”

“Um,” Lance said intelligently, suddenly wondering if his request was super odd. “I was wondering if you wanted to come do a face mask with me?”

“What?”

And just like that, Lance was blabbering, defending himself and his idea. “I mean, you don’t have to, obviously. My sisters used to do them with me back on earth—before the Garrison, obviously. It could always cheer me up, you know? Not that I’m upset now! We also did it for fun sometimes, um. And like, your skin totally needs it, since you’re using body wash on your face.” A pause. “You know what? Dumb idea. Totally dumb. Imma just—“ he hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “—go.”

“Wait!” Keith stopped Lance’s mouth and his body with just that word. He froze in the doorway, his thumb still in the air and his mouth still open. “Yeah, I’ll do one with you.”

Lance’s mouth snapped shut, and then he was nodding, still nodding. He made himself stop nodding. “Alright. Cool! Okay, come on.” He walked back through the hall, followed by the sound of Keith climbing out of his bed and padding after him, and then they were both in his room.

Lance led him to his bathroom, feeling along the wall and throwing open the cabinet that held all his face supplies.

“Jesus,” Keith managed. “This is just for your face?”

“Yeah,” Lance sighed. “My stock was way better at home but you gotta make do, you know?”

“Totally,” Keith agreed, obviously not knowing.

“Okay, so, the green ones are energizing,” Lance began, riffling through the cupboard with his tongue stuck out. He’d thought they were on the bottom shelf, but—

“Here,” Keith said. He grabbed Lance’s hand and directed it up a shelf, his fingers brushing lightly against his before he let go. Goosebumps erupted all along Lance’s arm. “I think those are them?”

Lance frowned, trying to concentrate, and grabbed the packet Keith had directed him to. He felt it for a moment, before shaking his head decisively. “Nah, that’s not it. That’s this face cream stuff.” With a little more rummaging, Lance managed to find a small container filled with a bunch of different packets of face masks.

“Like I was saying, green is energizing, so you probably don’t want that one right now. It’s better for mornings. I think the blue one is deep clean, and there’s some pink ones? I think? That are like, moisturizing.”

“Which one do you use?”

Lance felt himself blush, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. “Whichever,” he mumbled. He hadn’t used them too often since the accident, but whenever he did, it was a total guess which one he was getting. He’d grabbed an energizing one the other night and felt awake and ready to accomplish things by the time he was climbing into bed.

“Oh.”

“So? Know which one you’re going to choose?”

Keith answered by shoving a packet into Lance’s hand, another one presumably in his.

“What’s this?”

“Moisturizing,” Keith answered. “I figured you’d like that one? I doubt _you_  have to deep clean.” Lance felt himself smile, and he pushed Keith back through the doorway and crossed the room to climb into his bed, his back pressed against the wall.

“And yours is?”

“The red one.”

“I forgot there was a red one,” Lance said with a thoughtful hum. “What is it?”

“Huh? Oh—” Keith was silent as he read the packet he’d presumably picked just for the color, before clearing his throat. “For dry skin.”

“Probably accurate,” Lance said with a nod, before patting the bed beside him. “Come on. It’s not a true face mask party without sitting in a bed and talking about boys.”

“W-what?” Keith stuttered, although he _was_  climbing onto the bed—Lance felt it dip with his weight.

“I’m joking. That’s just what me and my sisters did.”

“ _You_  talked about boys?”

“Well, yeah. And girls sometimes, but usually boys on face mask nights.”

“Oh. Um. Are you… bi?”

“Oh! You didn’t know?” Lance said with a frown. He thought back, trying to remember if he’d just never said anything about boys in front of Keith before. It wasn’t like he was actively hiding it, although girls did tend to catch his eye a bit easier.

“No.”

Lance shrugged. “Sorry. Unless you have a problem with it…?”

“What? Of course I don’t!” Keith suddenly exclaimed, and Lance shrugged, a small smile playing across his lips.

“Just making sure.”

Lance instructed Keith on how to apply his face mask while putting on his own, the lotion-like goop drying and tightening around his face after a minute or two.

“This feels… weird,” Keith muttered. Lance felt his cheeks twitch, his mouth trying to spread into a grin, only to be halted by the tightness of the face mask. He wished he could see Keith, his mouth likely pursed as he talked, unused to the feeling.

“Your skin will thank you,” Lance responded easily. He then turned his body and leaned back, spreading his arms behind his head and stretching his body out. He unceremoniously threw a leg over Keith’s lap, who was sitting against the wall and made a sound of surprise. He felt his shirt ride up his stomach, but he did nothing to fix it.

Sure, it was a bit of a cop out, trying to flirt with Keith like this instead of with his words, but it was easier. When he’d been able to see he could at least see the reactions people were having. Now, he could only hope Keith was using the fact that he was blind to admire him openly—he knew he looked good; there was no reason for Keith not to.

Unless he was straight, of course, but Lance had a bit of an inkling that he wasn’t. A strong inkling, actually.

“Wonder what Hunk’s gonna make for breakfast tomorrow,” Lance hummed. Keith didn’t respond right away, and Lance felt the little part of his face that could move morph into a small smile. Another moment or two passed, and then—

“Oh. Yeah, me too!” Keith answered, too quickly, too loudly. Lance sighed, stretching a bit and letting his shirt ride up more. It was above his bellybutton now. And his sweatpants were riding low upon his hips, his boxers most definitely poking out the top of them.

Lance continued to lay like that for almost ten minutes, a bit longer than the masks actually needed. He was comfy, and he enjoyed the difficulty Keith seemed to have speaking.

“I think these can come off now," Lance finally groaned, convincing himself he'd gotten his fill. He rolled off the bed and held out a hand for Keith, surprised when he actually took it. He pulled the other boy up, dropping his hand after a second too long and turned towards his bathroom.

"It comes off with water and your face feel _great_ ," Lance promised. "You'll be back in here every night after this.”

Keith laughed, sounding almost nervous. "I-I don't know about that," he said, and Lance just shrugged.

"Suit yourself," he said. "It was nice knowing what mask I was using, though."

"I mean, I might come _some_  nights," Keith suddenly added, and Lance felt himself smile.

"Your skin'll thank you."

—

The face masks really _did_  become a regular thing. Lance was really enjoying it, actually, and he suspected Keith was too. Or would be, anyway, if he wasn't suffering.

Lance was aware that he was—possibly a bit cruelly—driving Keith mad.

Every night he was sure to be subtly but effectively all over Keith. He'd touch his shoulder when talking, lean against him when he laughed, and lounge across him whenever he so desired. Once he'd worn just his boxers and a t-shirt—Keith had only uttered seventeen words that whole night (Lance had counted).

Lance had even convinced Hunk to do face masks with them one night, which was maybe a mistake. The second Keith had left, Lance had _felt_  the fact that Hunk was crossing his arms, looking at him sternly.

"What?" he said innocently.

"You're _flirting_  with him."

"What? No way! I don't even know if he likes guys!"

"Like that would stop you! Lance, I've seen you flirt with a million people before, you can't pretend that I don't know what you're doing."

Lance had finally just shrugged, smiling ruefully. "Flirting's harmless."

"Not when you're involved," Hunk said, probably shaking his head, if Lance knew him well enough. "You flirt _viciously_. Poor Keith probably goes to his room every night and curls into a ball confused over his feelings."

"You think?"

"You're evil, Lance."

But Hunk wasn't there tonight, it was just them. He'd invited Pidge, but she'd sneered at the thought of wasting time doing a face mask when she could be doing more interesting things. Lance was honestly too intimidated to ask Shiro, and he was low-key scared of Allura. She could like, judge his facial products. Or be allergic to them.

"Do you think I'll be able to fight soon?" Lance asked. For once he was being nice, laying back on his bed without touching Keith or revealing any skin.

"What do you mean?" Keith responded. "You're nearly at level four with the gladiator."

"Yeah but like, _real_  fighting. With people. I mean, I'm only sort of okay at the defensive exercise.“ That exercise involved the lot of them using their shields to defend each other from lasers. Lance had actually been pretty good at it before, but now he had to rely solely on his ears, listening for the split second the laser charged up before it shot at them. He was only just getting the hang of it—usually it was his fault when someone got sucked into the floor. "And I'm great at the maze, since listening to directions is pretty much all I can do now anyway—"

Keith took a breath as if he were going to argue that, but Lance didn't give him a chance to interrupt.

"But I want to _fight_. It sucks sitting in here or my lion when you guys are on the ground fighting." His bond with Blue had only grown stronger. But now whenever they went on missions he was forced to sit inside her the whole time. Not that he didn't love her and all, but he wanted to be able to get on the ground, wanted to fight with his team. And there were some places where Blue just couldn't go, meaning Lance also couldn’t go. It sucked.

“Well, you're still training back up," Keith said reasonably. “You can't fight off enemies if you can't fight off a robot."

"I hate that robot."

"Maybe we could try to spar one day, or something," Keith said idly. Immediately, Lance latched onto the idea.

"Really!?" he said, sitting up suddenly. He hadn't even _thought_  to do that but it was a great idea! He needed to practice with things that could _think_!

"Oh! I mean, yeah, I guess—"

"Tomorrow?" Lance pestered. "Fight me tomorrow?"

“I—sure," Keith finally agreed, and Lance whooped loudly in excitement.

It was surprising that he was able to fall asleep after the burst of adrenaline that shot through him at the thought of sparring with Keith, but just a little while later, his face now smooth and clean, he accidentally drifted off to sleep.

As did Keith.

This made for a confusing time waking up in the morning, and though Lance hadn't planned it, it was probably the best thing he could've done so far.

He woke up on top of Keith. His face was pressed against his chest, his leg thrown over his waist and his hand having somehow found itself on the bare skin of Keith's lower stomach ( _thank you, Sleeping Lance_ ). He realized this as he woke up and did nothing to remedy it. He kept his eyes shut too, a habit he'd fallen into as of late. He could almost still see the dreams behind his eyes, clinging to his eyelids, and opening them would only ruin the image.

It turned out to be a good thing that he still seemed to be asleep, too. Enjoying the exact spot in which he was, he'd done nothing to extract himself from Keith's body in his wakefulness, resulting in Keith waking up to the very same situation.

Lance knew when he woke up because first, he groaned a little. Quiet and low in his throat, but enough to be heard. And then, a moment or two later, Lance felt him shift very, very subtly, before inhaling sharply. And just like that, the slow, steady heartbeat Lance had barely been aware of beneath his ear was thundering as loud as a galloping horse. It took everything in him to keep from grinning at the sound of it.

Slowly, though, Keith's heart calmed back down. And even more slowly, his hand came to rest tentatively in Lance's hair.

 _Oh there is no fucking way he's not gay,_  Lance thought to himself, as Keith's fingers played lightly through his hair. It felt good, but what felt even better was the fact that apparently a sleep-dazed Keith liked to touch the hair of boys he'd fallen asleep with.

And then, perhaps a bit mischievously, Lance decided to remind Keith of where his hand was. He curled his fingers into his palm, pressing against Keith's skin as he did, and—yep. Back to the thundering heart. And the hand was soon gone from his hair, a downside Lance hadn’t thought of beforehand. A minute or so passed, during which Keith's heart went back to normal, and then Keith's fingers were prodding at his shoulder, much less intimately than they'd been in his hair.

"Lance," he said, his voice a loud whisper. "Lance wake up."

Lance faked a groan, burying his face in Keith's chest for good measure. "Hmm?"

"Get off me," Keith laughed. "I guess we accidentally fell asleep last night."

Lance sat up slowly, rearranging himself next to Keith, and yawned widely. "Sorry," he managed to say, sounding not sorry at all. He shrugged. "I'm a cuddler."

"I noticed."

After their impromptu slumber party, they both went about getting ready in the morning, brushing their teeth and the like, before heading to the training deck. Lance hadn't let Keith forget about his promise.

"What're you guys doing?" Pidge asked, somewhere further down the hall.

"Keith's gonna fight me!" Lance said. "Wanna watch?"

It'd only taken that much for Pidge to run screaming around the castle, gathering everyone for the free entertainment. It seemed she was done pitying Lance for the tragic loss of his eyesight and was back to enjoying seeing him getting his ass handed to him.

And that's how everyone ended up in the training deck, chatting excitedly as Lance propped his cane against the wall, trading it out for a sparring stick. Keith did the same, and then they were standing in the middle of the room together.

"Oh man," Hunk said, suddenly sounding anxious. "Don't hurt him Keith."

"You should be telling _me_  not to hurt _him_ ," Lance claimed, which probably received a lot of eye-rolls, to be honest.

"You do know I'm a lot better than the robot, right?" Keith said. Lance just tightened his grip on the stick.

"Bring it, Mullet!"

And Keith brought it. He _was_  much better than the gladiator, but thankfully, he was also much more concerned for Lance's wellbeing. Instead of knocking him on his ass every two seconds, he gave Lance tips and pointers, keeping him from getting too frustrated when he was bested again and again.

"Get him, Lance!" Pidge suddenly called out. The others joined in, and while it was encouraging, it was also horribly distracting. He needed his ears to be able to hear Keith, hear his footsteps, his sparring stick whistling through the air, his—

Suddenly there was something cool pressed against his throat, and a warm body at his back.

“You cheated!” Lance cried immediately, and Keith stepped away from him.

“I’m just using my advantages.”

“That’s not fair,” Lance pouted.

“You think if you’re fighting on the ground with us our enemies’ll be fair?” Keith demanded. “You have to learn to concentrate, to dissect what you’re hearing.”

"That's impossible!”

"If that's what you think then you’ll never be able to fight on the ground with us.”

Lance didn’t have a chance to respond before Keith was giving him a big shove forward. He stumbled, automatically swinging out with his weapon behind him, but he hit nothing but air.

Everyone was still cheering for him, their voices echoing off the domed ceiling. Lance shifted slightly, straining his ears. It was quiet, and Lance definitely didn’t hear it fast enough to be safe doing this in a real battle, but he heard the quiet sound of Keith’s shoe scuffing on the mat. Just like that, he was jumping aside and swinging his sparring stick through the air, expecting a direct hit.

Instead, he hit another stick. This resulted mostly in Lance having to run away. He wasn’t a match for Keith _with_  his eyesight, he definitely couldn’t out-sword-fight him like this. But he managed to block Keith a few times as he backed away, hearing the tell-tale whistle and raising his own weapon before a strike could land. But other times he was too slow, or way off from where the sound had actually occurred, meaning he kept getting hit with a stick.

Overall, fighting Keith was not very fun. Yes, he was a good teacher—great, even—and yes, the amount of patience he had was actually surprising and his skill was undeniable, but there’d once been a time when Lance could have stood a chance against him. It was dumb and pitiful and probably weak of him, but Lance couldn’t help missing that time. He couldn’t help feeling useless, not even able to block half of Keith’s shots at him, unable to dodge half of his lunges.

By the time they were done practicing, Lance was feeling pretty dejected—the exact opposite of the rest of his team, apparently.

“That was so cool!” Hunk was saying, having latched onto Lance’s arm and started dragging him down the hallway, everyone else following loudly. “You couldn’t even _see_  him and still you were like _wham, wham, wham!_  blocking him!”

“Well I didn’t—”

“I have absolutely no idea how you did it,” Allura added, somewhere behind Lance. “You could barely tell you’re blind, just watching you.”

“It was very impressive,” Shiro chimed in. “You’ve been doing well, teaching him,” he said, presumably to Keith. Keith grunted.

Then there was the sudden presence of another person on his arm, followed by Pidge speaking. “I’ve never seen anything like it! Fighting with your hearing alone?! I wonder if I can make you some kind of hearing aid or something. Maybe it could reduce the too loud noises? And amplify the ones of the actual people you’re fighting? I don’t know…” Pidge was already muttering under her breath. Lance decided to leave her to it. If she actually did end up inventing something for him, he didn’t doubt it would be super awesome and useful. In fact, now that she’d mentioned it, he was kind of crossing his fingers in hopes for something.

Hunk had let go of his arm at some point, talking loudly to Coran about something cool Lance had done, apparently. Lance turned his head immediately at the light touch on his elbow, his eyes instinctively searching despite the lack of information they were receiving.

“Seems like everyone’s pretty proud of you,” Keith commented, and Lance shrugged with a smile.

“Guess so.”

“I am too, you know,” Keith said. Lance felt his cheeks heat and he smiled to himself as he walked. Honestly, this boy was going to be the death of him.  
—

Lance never expected to be on a ground mission so soon. Yes, he’d been dying to go again, and yes, he hated having everyone in danger besides himself, but he’d come to trust his teammates. He knew that they were smart and strong and could take care of themselves, could get themselves out of situations before they got too out of hand.

It was because of that that he’d accepted it when they’d received a distress call from a nearby planet. There wasn’t enough information to go off of, the transmission choppy and cut out, entire sentences lost in space, but the message was clear enough: _We need help._

And so they’d gone out there, Voltron style—Lance was ready to kick the shit out of any bad guy he saw, practically vibrating with adrenaline inside Blue’s cockpit. The problem was that the enemy wasn’t Voltron _sized_. It wasn’t even Voltron accessible. Everyone else ended up having to get out of their lions and venture to the surface of the planet, one that was apparently ridden with tunnels.

Lance had, dejectedly, returned to the castle on his own. Ever since then he’d been standing anxiously with Allura and Coran, who were monitoring the planet with the castleship, tracking the paladins and trying to detect the danger. They’d been venturing deeper and deeper into the surface of the planet, no enemies or civilians having yet been found, when Lance’s helmet suddenly crackled to life with Pidge’s voice.

“Jesus!” she cried, quickly followed by similar exclamations from the everyone else.

“Paladins! What’s happening?” Allura demanded. They didn’t answer right away, too busy apparently fighting off whatever they were fighting off, and Lance felt his entire body go cold. It wasn’t _right_  that he wasn’t out there! He couldn’t understand how Allura just _did_  this all the time, listened to them screaming and shouting from a place where she couldn't do anything to help.

“I can’t see!” Hunk suddenly yelled. Other voices joined in, yelling to each other and agreeing with Hunk.

“We’re blinded,” Keith’s panted, apparently still having enough sense to inform Allura of what was going on.

“What?”

“They’re these— _things_ ,” Shiro added, sounding very occupied. “They’re like giant scorpions, almost.”

“They sprayed this gas stuff,” Pidge explained, maybe thirty seconds later. “It got in our eyes, it’s—oh shit, hold on—”

They continued to wait, very tense and anxious, as the four paladins panted and grunted doing whatever it was they were doing down there. Finally, maybe a minute or two later, Pidge chimed back in.

“We just found the civilians,” she said. Indeed, they could hear Shiro talking quietly to the residents of the planet Tarenti. “Apparently these creatures were dropped here from Galra ships—their spray is blinding for at least an hour, sometimes more.”

“We’re gonna have to wait for it to wear off,” Keith said, sounding as pissed as he always did during tense situations.

“And just get sprayed again?” Pidge argued.

“Aw man, I don’t wanna get sprayed again!” Hunk whined. “It hurt my eyes!”

“Good news, everyone,” Shiro interrupted. “It looks like those creatures we faced were the last three of them, but they’ve been guarding this entrance constantly. Many of the Tarations have been severely injured by them. And apparently the blindness lasts longer with each spray—one of the warriors here has been blind for three days now.”

“I do _not_  wanna be blind for three days,” Hunk said immediately. “Er—no offense Lance.”

“None taken,” Lance said. “Especially not since I’m about to save the day.”

“What?”  
“Oh, come on!” Lance cried. “This is totally my mission! I bet I could fight one of those things!”

“Lance…”

“I’m serious! None of you guys could fight it blind! And it’s natural defenses won’t work on me!”

“It’s too dangerous,” Allura said immediately. Lance crossed his arms.

“In case you haven’t noticed, everyone else is already _in_  danger. And what if that thing blinds them again? What if it blinds them forever? We can’t defend the universe if we’re _all_  blind!”

“He makes a good point,” Coran said.

“ _Thank you_ , Coran,” said Lance.

It took a lot more convincing than that, actually, but in the end Lance really did manage to—somehow—get his way. It was with his heart beating dramatically in his throat, more out of excitement than fear, that he flew down to the planet’s surface. Blue dropped him off right by the entrance of a tunnel and he took off into it, his cane hastily scraping the ground before him.

The tunnel was relatively smooth and steady, so he didn’t have much trouble running it it. Allura’s voice spoke in his ear, telling him when to turn, directing him to the rest of his teammates.

It was when Allura said “Left here!” that Lance realized he wasn’t alone. The clanking of metal claws sounded somewhere from in front of him, and Lance managed to duck out of the way just as something huge went darting past his face. Air rushed around him as it did, and Lance ducked away, scrambling for his bayard at his side. He lifted it and felt it transform—

Into his gun. _Fuck_.

Why wouldn’t his bayard adjust itself, now that he was blind? Surely it made more sense for him to use something better suited for hand to hand combat?

His internal complaints were forced to a halt when he heard the creature rushing towards him again. With a shrug, Lance raised his gun and started firing at the thing coming towards him (it let out a screech) before ducking and running. Its clawed feet (definitely more than two) pounded after him as he ran, and Lance fired shot after shot over his shoulder, until finally the thing let out a loud yell and collapsed, the whole tunnel shaking when it did. Lance paused, breathless and kind of amazed with himself, only to be assaulted by a quiet _hisssssss_.

Lance realized what it was as he was suddenly showered in mist, a second of those creatures apparently attempting to blind him. He managed to jump backward, out of range of the monster’s long claws or gaping jaws or, or… well, he didn’t really know what it looked like, but it was probably pretty dangerous.

Except that they really _weren’t_  that dangerous. Sure, they were terrifying, and getting blinded by them would most definitely make any sane person fear them, but Lance was already blind. And hardly sane. It was thanks to this, really, that he realized the creatures weren’t actually all that strong or smart. They relied on their defense mechanism, needed people to be confused and helpless before they could do any real damage.

Knowing this, Lance fired off four shots and took the second thing down, letting out a whoop as it crashed to the floor loudly.

“Bring it, baby!” he called.

“Is he really doing this?” said a disbelieving voice in his ear, coming from the coms.

“You better believe I am,” Lance answered. “Two down and one to go!”

Further proving the creatures weren’t all that smart, the third one came charging after Lance when he was a mere corridor away from the rest of his team, despite the fact he’d already easily taken down its two brethren. He fired off a few killing shots as it scuttled towards him before he turned sauntered the rest of the way down the hall before realizing none of his friends could actually see his victory walk. Weird.

“Hey guys!” he greeted, after following the murmurs of voices throughout the tunnels. “Miss me?”

“Lance!” This was Pidge, whose voice came running towards him—and then, past him. “Fuck!” Pidge cried, having run into a wall face-first.

“Careful!” Lance laughed, and then the rest of his team was navigating their way towards him, clapping him on the back (and each other’s backs, because they couldn’t really be sure who they were clapping when it was so _dark_ ) and congratulating him.

Lance froze when a hand slid into his quite suddenly.

“You did great,” Keith said, and Lance felt his jaw drop open. Keith squeezed his hand once before letting go, and Lance had to clear his throat.

“Yeah, I mean. It was no biggie.”

Lance ended up having to lead everyone back through the tunnels, which was a great feeling. This was after all the Tarations thanked them a million times for saving them and shit. He strode confidently through the tunnels with several people clinging to him, walking slowly because they were afraid they’d trip or something (first rule of being blind, Lance had realized: embrace tripping. It just happened sometimes. Nothing you could do about it.)

Lance also ended up having to get in his lion and shuttle everyone else’s lions back to the ship, none of them able to see in their lions without their eyes.

Once they were all safely back in the castle, they ended up convening in the living room like they usually did to talk over everything that had happened. It always deteriorated into just hanging out though, which was Lance’s favorite part of the after-mission. It was even better now, seeing as he’d actually gotten to be apart of it again.

“This is really weird,” Keith murmured into Lance’s ear as everyone else chatted animatedly. “I feel kind of bad, knowing I’m going to get my eyesight back soon. I can’t imagine what it was like for you—what it’s _still_  like…”

“It’s getting better,” Lance said, and he realized then that it was true. He barely spent any time simply laying around and loathing his life anymore. Now he was actually productive, and he trained and made jokes and spent time with everyone. And Keith’s shoulder was pressed against his shoulder right now, which was definitely a good thing.

Eyesight ended up returning to Pidge first, who let out an exclamation of excitement when it did. Everyone else followed shortly after, all talking loudly and over each other in the commotion. Before bed that night, they all spontaneously felt the need to give Lance hugs, having realized just what exactly he’d been going through.

Lance couldn’t very well say that he wasn’t absolutely basking in the attention.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys!! so this is the last chapter! i really hope you guys like it! this has been super fun to write and i've loved being able to update so quickly for you all, thank you to everyone whose commented such kind things! thank you for reading! 
> 
> oh yeah also there's smut in this chapter, be ready for that! if you're not about that smut life then when it starts to happen you can command + f your way to "he pulled keith back onto the bed" to skip it!

Lance absolutely wasn’t expecting it when it happened.

Sure, he thought about kissing Keith like, all the time, but that didn’t mean he actually _expected it to happen_. Keith was a reserved person—he was good at keeping to himself and likely wouldn’t be happy about such a big disruption in his life, such as suddenly having a boyfriend. Plus, sometimes Lance was so obsessed with the way he was feeling that he managed to twist every little one of his crush’s actions into them liking him back, which, yeah, didn’t always work out so well.

Usually when Lance liked someone, if he felt like they liked him back, he would make a move. This usually included leaning in all slow and dramatic, maybe even tilting their head up, as he readied them for a kiss. But he definitely couldn’t do that now! He’d probably lean in to kiss Keith but end up missing and accidentally kiss his eye or something, and then Keith’s eye would hurt and Lance would be embarrassed. It just didn’t seem like something that was going to happen any time soon.

He was wrong.

It happened on a day just like any other. Ever since the first time they’d sparred, they’d been doing it more often, fighting each other after Lance had gotten knocked around just a bit too much by the robot. Lately, Lance had resulted to trickery, trying to sabotage a win out of Keith if he couldn’t accomplish it with skill alone, but so far nothing had worked out right.

“Look at that!” Lance gasped, pointing, only to have his hand smacked by Keith’s weapon.

“That only worked once!”

Lance shrugged. “Worth a try.”

They continued to fight, Keith smacking Lance’s arms and legs most of the time while Lance swung out widely, trying to land a hit. He ended up throwing his stick when Keith was least expecting it. Lance heard it smack against Keith, some number of feet away from him, and let out a cheer, jumping into the air and pumping his fists in excitement.

This plan backfired, however, when Keith charged at him. Lance let out a groan as he was knocked to the ground, Keith coming with him. Just like that they were wrestling—rolling on the floor and laughing as they struggled to pin each other.

Keith ended up on top—obviously only because Lance was blind and disadvantaged—and Lance groaned as he laughed beneath Keith, fruitlessly trying to escape his grasp.

“Ugh! Fine! You win,” Lance pouted, finally admitting defeat. Keith didn’t answer. He was laying on top of Lance, his hips pinning Lance’s hips, his hands holding Lance’s wrists against the floor.

Lance had just opened his mouth to ask why the sudden radio silence when he found himself unable to ask anything at all.

For just a moment, warm breath fanned out against his lips, only to be suddenly replaced with the press of a mouth against his. Keith kissed him so softly, so tentatively, before wrenching himself away just as quickly with a gasp.

“Oh shit—I’m, I didn’t—“

Lance yanked his hands out of Keith’s grip and reached up, burying them in Keith’s hair as he pulled him back down. He kissed him, thankfully having managed to not miss his mouth, and Keith breathed against him shakily as he did, one of his hands splayed against Lance’s chest.

“Thank God,” Lance managed, when he pulled away from Keith to finally breathe.

“What?” Keith sounded dazed. He was still leaning over Lance, still had a hand on his chest, still had his knees on either side of Lance’s hips.

“I’ve just been wanting to kiss you for so long,” Lance admitted, and he reached up carefully, trying his best not to punch Keith in the chin as he searched for his mouth with his thumb. He found it, and he pressed his thumb against his lower lip, pulling it down and feeling Keith let out a shaky breath against it.

“You could’ve said something,” Keith muttered.

“Keith,” Lance said, while propping himself on one elbow, pressing his face closer to the other boy’s. “There’s some things even _I’m_  not confident enough to do.” And with that, he kissed him again, reveling in the warmth of Keith’s mouth against his.

—

They decided to keep their newly blossoming relationship a secret. Mainly because of the very apparent underlying fear as they realized they had no idea what everyone else would think about it. Would Allura disapprove? Would she think it’d distract them from their paladin duties? Would _Shiro_?

And so, fearing repercussions from their team while simultaneously finding their clandestine meetings kind of hot, they dated secretly. It was kind of the same as not dating, actually. They just occasionally pressed their lips together and smiled giddily because of it.

They still practiced together in the mornings and Lance still got his ass whooped by Keith relentlessly, but when they walked back to their rooms, before going their separate ways… they kissed.

Lance loved it when they kissed. It was something he hadn’t realized he so desperately needed in his life until now. So far, they’d been completely tame about it too. A chaste peck before dinner or a brief meeting of mouths after Keith laughed, having knocked Lance to the floor with a sparring stick once again. And each time it happened it filled Lance with warmth from head to toe, left him smiling so hugely he was sure he looked like an idiot.

It was harder for Lance to initiate these kisses, obviously. Back on earth, with the few girlfriends he’d had (and _yes_ , he _had_  had them, thank you very much) he’d always been the one to initiate stuff. He’d be the one to make the first move, to yawn and stretch his arm over their shoulders, to put his hand on their cheeks and step in closer, staring deeply into their eyes before looking down at their lips. Lance had had _moves_ , man! He’d been _good_  at it. But now his moves were obsolete—they were too hard to do when blind, and Lance would more likely embarrass himself than actually be able to pull them off.

Even knowing this, he’d still tried to do a classic: the yawn initiated cuddle. Except instead of wrapping his arm around Keith’s shoulders he’d accidentally punched him in the face. And Keith had punched him back, thinking it was on purpose.

Lance didn’t even want to imagine what sex would be like. He’d always been totally confident in the bedroom (and by always he meant excluding his first time—you couldn’t expect anyone to be completely suave and in control their first time), all clothes pulled off teasingly, smirk so sharp it could cut glass. Now all he could think of was pulling off his shirt and managing to punch Keith in the eye or something. No bueno.

But even though they’d managed to keep their kisses completely tame and civil, a part of Lance thankful for the slow progression of their relationship, an entire other part of him just wanted to yank Keith into his bed and kiss him silly. It was constantly on his mind, constantly clouding his thoughts and distracting him and—

“Lance,” Keith greeted, his door swishing open. Lance was momentarily taken aback, having forgotten he’d even knocked.

“Face masks?” Lance prompted, remembering the reason he’d even crossed the hall in the first place. They hadn’t done one together since they’d started dating and the thought of having Keith back in his bed now made his skin heat up.

“Sure.”

Lance waited for Keith as his socked feet padded against the floor, coming towards him.

“Why are you smiling like that?”

Lance wiped the smile off his face. “It was supposed to be my flirty smile.” He frowned. “Usually I make sure it looks good in the mirror first, but…”

“Your normal smile’s cuter,” Keith said. The easy honestly made Lance’s jaw drop, and his cheeks flushed pink when two fingers came up to push mouth shut.

He ended up trailing behind Keith as they walked into his room, using whatever face mask Keith happened to pick out for him. And when they retreated to his bed, he didn’t sprawl across it, didn’t try to entice Keith like he always did. Instead he found himself sitting up straight against the wall, his hands folded in his lap. It wasn’t the normal route he would’ve gone in, but... he didn’t want to mess this up.

No, he’d take this slow. He’d do everything the proper way, with dates and dinners and alien flowers and—

“Wanna make out?”

“ _What_?”

“We don’t _have_  to,” Keith scoffed, sounding embarrassed. “I just thought, I mean—”

Lance cut him off with his own mouth. Fuck taking things slow—Lance would fuck Keith right here and now if he said he was ready. Who needed food and flowers when you could skip all that junk and get straight to the fun stuff, like sticking his tongue in Keith’s mouth?

Speaking of, Lance stuck his tongue in Keith’s mouth. It drew a surprised sound out of the other boy, whose hands had gripped onto Lance’s elbows in surprise the second Lance had descended on him. Now he was moving his mouth desperately—and obviously inexpertly—against Lance’s. What he lacked in skill he made up for in enthusiasm, which was somehow much cuter than Lance had ever thought it could be.

Still, he forced the kiss to slow down, gripping Keith’s jaw in one hand and angling his head, moving his mouth slower and slower against Keith’s. He could hear Keith breathing, could feel it against his lips.

“Lance,” Keith murmured in between kisses, without adding anything else. Had he just said Lance’s name for the sake of saying it? Lance smirked, Keith probably able to feel it against him, and pushed Keith down on the bed, clambering on top of him. Keith’s breath hitched as he was maneuvered into this new, horizontal position, and Lance finally let the kiss start picking up again as he settled down against Keith, their bodies lined up from chest to toe.

At least, they were, until Lance bit down on Keith’s bottom lip and Keith groaned beneath him, his fingers clenching in Lance’s shirt, before he suddenly shoved Lance aside, panting. Lance fell to the floor with the abrupt movement, his elbow knocking against metal as he let out a small yelp of surprise.

“Shit! I’m sorry!” Keith said immediately, and then his hands were touching Lance again, pulling him back onto the bed. Lance hadn’t even realized they were so close to its edge.

“Nah, it’s alright. Um… why’d you push me off, again?”

“Um. I just… Uh…”

Lance felt the corner of his mouth pull up into a smirk. _Oh_. He could remember doing the same thing back when he’d been dating his first girlfriend, Christina Elliot. He’d been fifteen, and she’d been the first person to ever make out with him. She’d pushed him against a wall and kissed him so intensely he was sure he was going to faint, and when it felt a little _too_  good, when he’d gotten a little _too_  excited… he’d shoved her away.

“Not a problem,” Lance said smoothly, and he reached out towards Keith’s face. Keith’s hand came up and gripped his wrist, directing Lance to his chin, presumably before he poked him in the eye or something. Lance didn’t acknowledge the assistance, just pressed his thumb against Keith’s lip. He’d found it was something he very much enjoyed doing, for some weird reason. “I can’t help it if I rock your socks off.”

“Lance—” said Keith, sounding pained, but Lance just laughed and cut him off with a quick peck before patting his cheek.

—

Lance hummed as he walked through the halls, one hand trailing along the walls as he did. He paused when he heard the gentle sound of a tv playing in the common area, a little ways past the kitchen. He continued, following the sound of foreign Altean voices and pausing once he reached the doorway, wondering who was watching tv inside.

“Hey, Lance.”

“Keith!” Lance grinned, realizing it was Keith watching tv, and he strode into the room confidently, towards Keith’s voice. He swung himself over the back of the couch upon reaching it and dropped his arm behind Keith’s shoulders, snuggling up close to him. “What’re we watching? Or hearing, in my case.”

“Um,” Keith said, louder than he usually would’ve, unnaturally stiff against Lance. Lance sighed.

“There’s someone else in here, isn’t there?”

“Everybody,” Keith answered.

“Fuck.”

“ _What_  is going _on_?” Pidge suddenly exclaimed, sounding as if these words had been bubbling underneath her skin until now. Lance hastily retracted his arm from around Keith’s shoulder, folding his hands neatly in his lap instead. He couldn’t be sure, but it felt like everyone was staring at him. And to be honest, they probably were.

“Um, well—you see...” Lance began.

“You didn’t tell me?” Hunk interrupted, sounding hurt.

“Hunk... Buddy...”

“I’m sorry, what’s going on?” asked Allura, sounding more confused than anything. “What’s the problem?”

“Lance put his arm around Keith,” Pidge explained. “Affectionately.”

“He puts his arm around everyone,” Coran input, also sounding a bit perplexed. “Why, just yesterday he put his arm around me and tried to give me a noogie!”

“You gave Coran a _noogie_?” Shiro said, sounding exasperated and about ready to reprimand Lance.

“Now’s not the time for accusations,” Lance said hurriedly. “Besides, I didn’t even noogie him.”

“Yes, yes,” Coran said, laughing. “You accidentally punched me in the face instead! Not your fault, of course, being blind...”

“ _Lance_!”

“Accidentally!”

“Can we please get back to the matter at hand?” Pidge demanded. “Lance and Keith are romantically inclined!”

“Whaaaaat? Psh! PSH!” Lance said, waving his hand through the air dramatically. He accidentally slapped Keith in the face. “Sorry Keith.”

“You just _apologized_!” Pidge accused. “TO KEITH.”

“I’m a nice guy,” Lance said. He elbowed Keith in the side. “Back me up here.”

Keith cleared his throat. “Um. Yes. Very... nice.”

“You suck.”

“You’re _mean_.”

“ _You’re_   _dating_!” Pidge exclaimed. “I’m gesturing between you two, Lance! Very dramatically.”

“I can totally see that,” Lance said, nodding understandably. A nice dramatic flair was always a good addition to any exclamation.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Hunk asked, still sounding hurt. It was apparent that no one was believing Lance about him not dating Keith.

“We thought you guys would tell us we were being irresponsible,” Keith said, putting together a complete sentence for the first time since he’d said _hey, Lance._

“Irresponsible?” Allura scoffed. “Lance narrowly avoiding falling into a depression because of you, Keith.”

“Narrowly!? I was fine! I was always fine!”

“Oh my god, you were _not_ ,” said Hunk. Lance could imagine him crossing his arms angrily.

“I was!” Lance yelled, indignant. Sure, it was a lie, but he’d totally thought he’d been convincing everyone else that he was fine that whole time. Had they really been able to see right through that? He’d thought he was like, the most accomplished actor.

Meanwhile, he could hear Pidge muttering frantically under her breath about how she was supposed to be so observant and how had she not noticed for this long?

“How long have you two been dating, anyway?” Allura asked.

“A month,” Keith said, at the same time that Lance answered, “a week.”

Lance froze, his (useless) eyes widening as Keith said, “ _What_?”

“Uh oohhh...” said Hunk.

“A _week_?” Keith demanded.

“Looks like that’s our cue to leave,” Pidge said suddenly, and Lance sat very still as he heard everyone filing past him.

“W-we only kissed a week ago,” Lance said. He could imagine Keith’s face—brows pulled down over his scowling eyes, lips pinched tight, nose—geez, he’d stared at Keith looking angry way too often in the past, hadn’t he?

“But! We were doing face masks!” Keith exclaimed. “We sat in your bed together! Sometimes you _didn’t wear pants_!”

“That was me trying to _entice_  you,” Lance said hastily. “I didn’t realize you thought we were dating.” Keith made a hurt sound, and Lance hastened to add, “If I had I would’ve kissed you way earlier!”

A moment passed in silence, during which Keith huffed, the couch moving as he adjusted whatever way he was sitting. “This is embarrassing,” he muttered.

“I think it’s cute,” Lance said, and he leaned towards Keith carefully, reaching out with a hand first to touch his cheek before kissing it. Keith’s face was hot against his lips, and he wondered if Keith was blushing.

They were disrupted by a loud “Aww!” chorusing behind them, and Lance jumped backward, feeling his face heat. He didn’t mind public displays of affection—had always been all for it, actually, whenever he’d dated back on earth—but it was alarming when he wasn’t even aware he was doing it.

“What the heck, Keith!” Lance burst out. “ _You’re_  not blind!”

“They’re _behind_  us! How was I supposed to see them!?”

“Uh, how about with your _eyes_?”

Lance felt a pair of hands reach out and grab his wrists—the beginning to any good wrestling match, if growing up with the amount of siblings he’d had had taught him anything—when they were quickly interrupted.

“In any case,” Allura said loudly, making Keith let go of him, probably out of surprise. “We’re all very happy for you two, and _no_ , I wouldn’t force you to break up for such a flimsy reason,” she said, sounding kind of offended. Lance was just left wondering what kind of reasons _weren’t_  flimsy.

“Awesome,” Lance decided. This was all the better for him, really. Now he could wrap his arms around Keith whenever and wherever he wanted. Lance had never been very touchy with Keith before, having always been low-key intimidated by him and fearing Keith would cut his hands off with that alien knife of his, but now his hands were on Keith practically whenever he could manage it. It was all made better by the fact that Keith didn’t exactly mind it, either.

Just the other day Lance had persuaded Keith into letting him give him a back massage, which had enabled Lance to run his hands over Keith’s naked back for a good ten minutes. Keith had let out little sighs and groans underneath him, and while Lance had vaguely hoped in the back of his mind that the entire experience might segue into something sexual, no such relief had been forthcoming.

“So, what are we watching?” Lance asked again, scooting back up to Keith and wrapping his arm around his shoulders once more. Keith was still stiff against him, probably unused to showing any sort of affection in front of other people, but he didn’t shove Lance off.

“It’s a romance,” Pidge answered, plopping down on Lance’s other side. Her feet dug under his thigh, her body presumably sideways as she leaned against the arm of the couch. “This Altean girl is in love with this jock alien when her best friend is sweet and perfect all along.”

“Wow, even Alteans have those overused plot lines?”

“Overused!” Coran scoffed. “This is a classic!”

The room quieted back down as the movie was resumed. Lance jumped when Pidge shoved something into his lap.

“Sorry. Popcorn,” she said through a mouthful. Lance just nodded, digging into the popcorn with one hand, his other one occupied, fingers trailing up and down Keith’s arm.

The movie wasn’t very interesting, from what Lance could tell. The music swelled dramatically a lot and the main girl said things that presumably everybody else was reading subtitles to understand but sounded cheesy to Lance’s ears nonetheless. Still, despite his inability to actually watch the movie or even know what was going on in it, he was enjoying himself. It was nice, being able to cuddle with Keith on what was a classic date situation.

“Can’t believe we’re watching a romantic movie together,” Lance murmured into Keith’s ear, and Keith snorted, elbowing Lance in the side.

“Are you even having fun?” he asked, suddenly sounding worried. “I mean, you don’t even know what’s going on.”

“I don’t mind,” Lance whispered. “I just like being able to cuddle with you for so long.”

Keith was spared having to respond, his face likely red, when Pidge reached out and kicked Lance in the chest.

“Stop talking!”

—

For once, Lance was glad he hadn’t managed to get into Keith’s pants that night.

He kept trying to make it happen, kept trying to smoothly guide Keith into some kind of make-out session that led to the both of them under the covers and with their pants off. Unfortunately, they never really made it past the making out part. Keith would come into his room, occasionally do face-masks with Lance, and then oblige to Lance climbing all over him or pressing him into the mattress or pulling him close. He hummed against Lance’s lips and twisted his fingers in his shirt when Lance kissed his jaw, but it all ended when Keith eventually slipped away from him, bidding Lance goodnight and retreating to his own room.

If nothing else, Lance at _least_  wanted him to sleepover, but he had yet to ask, always too breathless after kissing him to manage the invitation as Keith was hurrying away. All of this, inevitably, had led to some frustration on Lance’s part, something that he longed for practically all hours of the day. And so it wasn’t a simple kind of statement to say that he was glad he hadn’t managed to get Keith to stay over, hadn’t managed to get his clothes off.

No, the only reason he was was because his door swished open at ass-o’clock and Hunk came thundering in.

“I can’t believe you!” Hunk roared, making Lance jerk awake and tumble out of his bed.

“Wha—?” he exclaimed, jumping to his feet only to get them twisted in his comforter and fall down again. “Ugh, Hunk,” he groaned. “What are you doing?” His entire body still felt swamped with sleep, paired with the several bruises he was now probably sporting.

“Exacting vengeance!”

“At this time? Er… What time is it, anyway?”

“Like six-ish, earth time.”

“Hunk! Never wake a man before the sun!”

“I no longer have respect for your wishes,” Hunk sniffed. “You didn’t tell me that you and Keith were dating!”

“We were keeping it secret,” Lance protested. He finally clambered back to his feet, carefully edging his way around his comforter to move towards Hunk.

“Telling a best friend doesn’t count as telling a secret,” Hunk scoffed. “Everyone knows that. _Especially_  when you’ve forced said best friend to listen to you talking about your crush a million times.”

“I’m sorry,” Lance said with a pout. He imagined what it would feel like if Hunk started dating someone without telling him, only managing to make himself feel even worse. He leaned against Hunk and wrapped his arms around him. “I didn’t mean to keep it from you, honestly. We’ve just been really busy together these last few days.”

“Eurgh, I do _not_  need to know that!” Hunk grabbed Lance’s shoulders and forcefully maneuvered him back a step.

“Not like that!” Lance said hastily, and then, lower, “Not that I haven’t been trying.”

“Gross, Lance!”

“What!? Best friends should be able to talk about this!”

“Lance!”

“If you won’t listen to me wanting to jump my boyfriend’s bones then you’re homophobic!”

“ _Lance_!”

“ _What_?”

“Keith is _in here_!”

Abrupt, horrible, classic silence. “ _Augh_!” Lance exploded, collapsing to the ground on top of his heap of comforters. “I hate my life.”

“I can just… go,” Keith said, clearing his throat. Lance must’ve missed the sound of the door opening during some point of his lamenting over not being able to, how had he put it? Jump his boyfriend’s bones?

“Maybe _I_  should go,” Hunk murmured, and Lance just groaned, his arm thrown over his face. He didn’t really care who left—he would continue suffering in embarrassment either way.

He continued to lay there, pathetically contemplating ways to escape this situation, as the door slid open and footsteps retreated. So who did that leave in his room?

The answer was abruptly obvious when a hand pressed itself to his exposed stomach, his shirt having ridden up in his dramatic collapse onto the floor. He sucked in a breath, goosebumps erupting under Keith’s fingers automatically. God, he really needed to get laid if something like this was close to turning him on.

“You could’ve told me you wanted to have sex,” Keith said simply, and Lance spluttered something incomprehensible, sitting up and dislodging Keith’s hand from his skin.

“Um? No I couldn’t have!” Lance argued. “That sounds like the most embarrassing conversation ever.”

“More embarrassing than this one?”

Lance huffed. “Point.”

“Besides, if you’d said something I would’ve stopped running away every time I got a boner,” Keith said, in that simple honest way of his that left Lance wondering how he wasn’t blushing like a tomato. (Unless he was, and his voice just didn’t expose any of the embarrassment he was truly feeling).

“Well,” Lance said, taking a deep breath, the silence between them stretching on dramatically. “Now you know.”

“So… Should we…?”

“Right now?” Lance said disbelievingly.

“Um.”

“I mean—we haven’t even had breakfast yet,” Lance pointed out.

“Yeah.”

“But… if you… wanted to…?”

“I do. Want to, I mean.”

For a moment, Lance thought he’d gone deaf, which would’ve been truly horrible, seeing as he was already blind. But it turned out it was just all the blood rushing through his ears. He finally tuned back in to a worried-sounding Keith saying, “Lance?”

Lance wasted no time. He stood up and yanked off his shirt, ignoring Keith’s exclamation of surprise. “Come on,” he said, angling his head towards the bed as he backed up to it. His calves bumped into it sooner than he was expecting, and he let out a breath as he fell onto his bed, one arm thrown out to catch him. “You coming?”

“Yeah,” Keith said, voice closer than Lance had thought he was. He’d have to tell Keith to stop walking like a fucking cat—he needed to hear those footsteps!

The bed sunk with Keith’s weight, and Lance grinned, his insides bubbling with excitement. He felt like a carbonated drink having just gotten shaken.

“You’re staring at me, aren’t you?” Lance said with a smirk, basking in the indignant denials that immediately followed, all sounding completely false. “Admit it! You think I’m beautiful.”

“Shut up, Lance,” Keith grunted. Lance stretched out further on the bed, waggling his eyebrows for Keith’s benefit.

“You wanna _touch_  me,” he sang, only to gasp in surprise when Keith actually did. His hand splayed on Lance’s lower stomach, before he just started tracing Lance’s skin with a finger, dipping down below his navel and up again.

Lance grabbed Keith’s wrist and pulled him up the bed with a murmured, “C’mere,”, making him lay down right beside Lance, who propped himself up on one elbow, his body twisted towards Keith. If he’d still had his eyesight, he would’ve been using it to run his eyes up and down Keith’s body, would’ve used it to devour his naked skin as he pulled off his clothes, piece by piece. Without it, Lance would just have to make do.

He dropped a hand onto Keith’s stomach, rucking up his shirt a bit before sliding underneath it and touching the warm, smooth skin hiding there. Keith said nothing, just breathed deeply beside him, and Lance went about his business, touching everything he could manage to touch. He traced the defined lines on Keith’s abdomen, built up from the endless practice he seemed to do. He tugged lightly at the hair above his waistband and below his navel, smirking as Keith sucked in a breath. He ran his thumb over Keith’s nipples, traced his collarbones with his fingers, before finally grabbing Keith’s chin and carefully aligning himself for a kiss. It was slow and sweet, and Lance could only stand it for a few moments before he was urging Keith to take off his shirt entirely.

“You’ve never done this before, right?” Lance murmured, his lips playing against Keith’s neck, nipping towards his ear.

“How’d you know?”

Lance hummed, thinking of his inexperienced kisses and the running away whenever their make-out sessions had gotten a little too intense.

“Lucky guess,” he said, sliding on top of Keith as he kissed his jaw, and then lower, down his neck and near his collarbone. He laved the sensitive skin with his tongue, sucked it into his mouth, all the while having to resist a grin as Keith made the tiniest noises of approval ever.

He could feel Keith’s arousal against him and he ground down against it, holding back a laugh when Keith’s breath shuddered out of him in the form of, “Fuck!” And so Lance did it again, and again, humming contently under his breath as Keith’s hands came up to grip his elbows, his hips bucking up underneath Lance’s.

“Pants?” Lance suggested, breathless. Keith seemed to understand him despite the monosyllabic question and panted out an agreement, which quickly led to Lance sitting up and shimmying out of his own pants and underwear. He knew Keith was staring at him, likely taking him in and running his eyes up and down his body. It was a bit disconcerting, knowing it was happening but being unable to see it happen, but he pushed what little discomfort he felt aside.

“Can I?” he asked, having hooked his fingers into the waistband of Keith’s sweatpants.

“Yeah,” Keith breathed, and with that Lance was pulling his underwear and pants off in one, tossing them somewhere onto the floor beside him and splaying his hands on Keith’s thighs. He could feel his muscles trembling underneath his fingertips.

Feeling bold, Lance laid out on the bed between Keith’s spread legs, the top half of him propped up on his elbows. “Can I suck you off?”

Keith made a sound that Lance would be forced to bring back up and make fun of him for later, before he managed to use his words to tell Lance _yes, yes please._

Lance lamented the fact that he wouldn’t be able to look up at Keith all seductively while he went down on him, seeing as he could actually be staring at like, his chin or something, but he figured it’d still be hot either way. He had to grab Keith’s cock first, Keith gasping when he did, and direct it to his mouth that way.

Lance had always been a bit of a tease. He liked to wind people up in bed, liked to drive them up a wall and get them so close they were sweaty and shaking, so that when he finally let them come down they were completely worn out and limp, something Lance had always taken pride in. But he also wasn’t cruel, and seeing as this was only Keith’s first time, he decided to take it easy on him, only spending a minute or so driving him crazy with teasing licks, at the very tip of his cock and peppered down the length.

When he finally took Keith into his mouth, he moaned so loud and long Lance was sure everyone in the castle was able to hear. He bobbed his head, pressing down and swirling his tongue over Keith, which made Keith’s hand dive into his hair so firmly Lance had half a mind to worry over the fact that Keith might rip his hair out.

“Oh my God, Lance,” Keith panted, and his hips twitched under Lance before jerking upward, shoving himself further into Lance’s mouth. Lance had to hold his hips down then, Keith’s litany of whines and gasps surrounding Lance as he went down as far as he could. His tongue danced around Keith’s arousal, pulling obscene noises out of the other man that Lance basked in.

It was over almost as quickly as it had started—Keith was shaking and gasping under him as he came, moaning low under his breath, and he finally pushed Lance away when it got to be too much. Lance sat up, swallowed, and rubbed the back of his wrist across his mouth.

“Jesus fuck,” Keith announced, breathless, and Lance let himself grin.

“Good?” he asked, his hands falling on Keith’s thighs again, running down to squeeze just above his knees.

“I don’t know how I’m ever going to upstage that,” Keith admitted, and Lance laughed, his shoulders shaking as he bent over Keith.

“I don’t know, man, it’d be pretty hard to up—” Lance gasped as Keith suddenly shoved his way out from under him and pressed him up against the wall. One hand was splayed against the center of his chest, hot whereas the wall was cold. “Pushy,” Lance muttered, though he quickly shut up when Keith wrapped a hand around his cock.

He just let his head fall back against the wall, his mouth agape as Keith’s hand worked over him expertly.

“You’re pretty,” Keith murmured, as he twisted his hand over the head of Lance’s cock, making him jerk up into it.

“Fuck,” Lance managed, before panting, “Knew you—thought so.” And then he groaned, arching his back as Keith’s hand sped up over him, his hand twisting in the sheets by his hip. “Wish I could see you.”

In lieu of answering, Keith picked up Lance’s hand and directed it to his chest, which Lance immediately took to touching all over. Touching Keith was the next best thing to seeing him, after all, and his ran his hand down Keith’s chest and abdomen until he reached his hip, which he gripped as he tilted his head to the side, panting.

“You’re sweaty,” Lance whispered, feeling it under his fingers on Keith’s skin.

“So are you,” Keith muttered, before leaning in real close and pressing his mouth to Lance’s throat, just like Lance had done to Keith earlier. Lance groaned, stretching his head further to the side to make access for Keith, and he wrapped his hand around Keith’s, speeding him up on his cock as his lips and tongue worked against his throat.

Lance moaned as he came, his fingers digging harshly into Keith and pulling him even closer as he gasped and panted into his ear, his cock twitching in their hands. Afterwards, they stayed like that as Lance came down, catching his breath and slowly unlatching his fingers from the death grip he’d had on Keith’s hip.

“Sorry,” he breathed. Keith just surprised him with a kiss to the lips, which Lance quickly fell into, responding enthusiastically, his head following Keith’s when he finally pulled away.

“Gonna get a towel,” Keith muttered, and Lance just laid there, naked and splayed on the bed until Keith came back. He surprised Lance by pressing the warm washcloth against his skin, carefully mopping up the mess, which made a grin find its way onto Lance’s face.

He pulled Keith back onto the bed as soon as he was done, laying down and wrapping his arms firmly around him, breathing in the scent of him at the back of his neck.

“Why am I the little spoon?” Keith grumbled.

“Shut up,” Lance answered, but he maneuvered them so that he was just laying face down on Keith’s chest instead, one leg thrown over his hip and one hand tangled together with Keith’s.

“You’re cute,” Lance murmured, his eyes drifting shut as he turned his head to press a kiss against Keith’s skin.

“You can’t even see me,” Keith pointed out.

“Don’t have to. Everything about you’s cute.”

Keith responded by rudely pinching Lance’s nose, which earned him a slap on the wrist, which Keith answered by twisting Lance’s ear. It was only typical of them to not be able to cuddle normally, instead evolving into wrestling with Lance somehow ending up on the bottom, panting, as Keith’s naked body pinned him down, Keith laughing from somewhere up above him.

“You’re the worst,” Lance whined, but he wrapped his arms around Keith’s hips and held him close all the same.

—

The doors slid open, and Lance took a single step into the room before he was assaulted with, “No, no, _no_!”

“That’s no way to greet your best friend!” Lance exclaimed, but Hunk was already marching across the room, his hands latching onto Lance’s arms and trying to maneuver him back into the hall. “Hunk!”

“I do _not_  want to hear about it!”

“How did you even know we had sex?” Lance demanded. He’d just woken up after the involuntary nap he’d fallen into, and without waking Keith he’d managed to slip out of the bed, get dressed, and make it all the way to Hunk’s room.

“That hickey surely suggests something…” Hunk muttered darkly, and Lance hummed, tilting his head to the side and prodding at his neck, trying to find it. He ignored the pang of sadness that suddenly shot through him, knowing he’d never be able to stand in front of the mirror and look at all the hickeys Keith might one day leave on his naked body, maybe circling his thighs and hips, speaking of a fun night in bed together, having left Lance twisting this way and that as Keith tortured him ruthlessly.

Hunk grabbed Lance’s hand and jabbed it into the bruise for him, making Lance hiss at the ache it caused.

“Anyway,” Lance said, after having poked the sore spot enough to completely ensure its existence. “I just wanted to thank you for getting me laid—”

“ _Lance_!”

“ _And_  ask you to make my boyfriend a special breakfast. Please?”

“Laaaance.”

“Please!”

He knew Hunk would agree, but he still cheered when he sighed out an affirmative, letting Lance hang on his arm for the entire walk to the kitchen, shutting him up whenever Lance tried to mention something particularly personal about Keith.

“I wonder if he has any birthmarks.”

“I’m not checking for you,” Hunk said firmly, before finally pushing Lance into a seat at the counter, going about preparing the breakfast on his own.

He let Lance chatter happily as he moved around the kitchen, doing whatever it was he did to whip up earth-like foods.

“What’s the special occasion?” asked Pidge, who’d apparently just walked into a room.

“Nothing,” said Hunk, at the same time that Lance stretched, leaned back in his seat, and happily sighed, “I sexed my boyfriend.”

Hunk just huffed, used to his antics by now.

“Do you ever just? _Not_  say the most inappropriate thing?” Pidge demanded.

“Nope.”

“Figures.”

She took the seat next to Lance, obviously not very upset about it if she was going to accept Hunk’s post-sex breakfast.

“Morning everyone,” said Shiro, barely a minute later, most likely drawn in by what smelled like eggs and waffles. “Making breakfast, Hunk?”

“Yep.”

Shiro hummed, making his way across the kitchen from the sound of it. Next came the bubbling sound of the coffee machine Pidge and Hunk had managed to build together.

Either Hunk’s cooking was attracting the whole crew or this was some sort of epilogue of sorts, as next both Allura and Coran walked into the room, commenting on the smell of breakfast and greeting everyone good morning.

“Good grief!” Coran exclaimed suddenly. “Lance! A flobbergurst must’ve gotten you in your sleep! You need to get in the healing pod before the poison sets in!”

Allura’s gasp joined his, and in seconds her strong arms were wrapping themselves around his torso, manhandling him out of his chair and carrying him—kicking and screaming—presumably towards the healing pods.

“What are you talking about!” he cried, as Allura ignored him and Pidge cackled loudly. Shiro was already being responsible, listing off questions of what a flobbergurst was and what its poison did and what could happen to Lance.

“You must’ve not realized because you can’t see it,” Coran informed loudly, as Allura continued to carry his struggling body across the kitchen.

“That’s not a bite!” Lance exclaimed. “It’s just a hickey!”

Allura paused, still holding Lance, but he stopped struggling, just panted in her arms. “A what?”

“A hickey,” Lance explained. “You know. Someone sucks on your neck and it feels good.”

“Yuck,” Allura said elegantly, before dropping him painfully to the floor. He groaned, struggling back to his feet.

“You guys don’t do that?”

“Of course not,” said Allura, sounding disgusted. Lance shrugged.

“It feels good.”

There was a moment of silence. “You’re not gonna offer to give her one, Lance?” Pidge asked. Lance blinked, realizing that that _had_  been a perfect opportunity to very suavely use the line, _I could show you, Princess._

Instead, he shrugged. “I’m dating Keith.” Abrupt silence followed this statement. “Uh, guys? You already knew that, remember?”

“We’re not being abruptly silent because of you, Lance,” Hunk said.

“Yeah,” Pidge agreed. “It’s ‘cause Keith just walked into the room all sleepy-eyed and shirtless.”

“I didn’t realize everyone would be here,” Keith said defensively.

“You can _not_  tell me _that’s_  not a flobbergurst bite,” Coran said loudly, followed by more amused snorts by Pidge. Suddenly, Shiro made a sound like _oh_!, having apparently only just finally caught on to everything that was happening.

Lance sighed, turning around to face towards wherever Keith was. “I got Hunk to make you breakfast, sweetheart,” he said.

“How thoughtful of you,” Keith said, sounding like he might either be grimacing or grinning. Totally grinning, right? “I’m gonna go put on a shirt.”

“How I wish I could see sleepy shirtless Keith,” Lance bemoaned. Someone patted him comfortingly on the shoulder, which was probably Allura, seeing as she’d been standing nearest to him last.

“I can hear you!” Keith called, apparently only a few steps out the door.

Lance leaned heavily against Allura, sighing pathetically. “That boy makes me think mullets are attractive.”

“Love does crazy things,” Allura agreed, patting his shoulder.

Lance felt his sightless eyes widen at the thought of being in love with Keith, but he realized he couldn’t really deny it. “I gotta go,” he said suddenly, and he might’ve mumbled something about kissing Keith, and he might’ve also mumbled something about getting in his lion simply so he could try to get a look at him, but he was already out of the kitchen by the time the words left his mouth.


End file.
